


Yet Unconquered

by eyres



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Comic Book Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Romance, Steve Rogers as Nomad, Stucky Big Bang 2016, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 09:59:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7886728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyres/pseuds/eyres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Barnes thinks he has relatively normal life. He has a job (security at the Wakandan embassy) and a house and some hobbies. Sure, he shares a name with the famous (now dead) international assassin and he just woke up from a coma with no arm or memory of his past life - but everyone has their quirks, right? Nonetheless, James can’t shake the feeling he was meant for more than this. When he discovers he has superpowers, James finds himself taking on the mantle of vigilante and finds himself face to face with a masked superhuman named Nomad.</p><p>Where did James get his superpowers? Why can't he remember his past? Why is he so drawn to Nomad's blue eyes? And how does Steve Rogers play into all of this?</p><p>Featuring: a superhero's origin, a love story, and a happy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Yet Unconquered (中文翻译)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8261636) by [Pearlson613](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearlson613/pseuds/Pearlson613)



> This is my entry for the SBB and I'm very excited to finally get to share it with all of you.
> 
> First, I'd like to thank SiriusGrey for being a wonderful, amazing, thorough beta on this story. She definitely corrected some plot points that I had messed up along the way - on top of catching all my little errors. This story is 100% better because of her.
> 
> And, then, my artists: stuckypocketguide and jedicuties (and also an honorable mention to agentunionjack). It's so humbling and flattering to see things that exist only in your head appear on paper and both of them did an exceptional job at bringing the scenes to life. I'm so so lucky that they worked on this story!
> 
> Lastly, thanks to the mods at The Stucky Library for hosting this whole event!
> 
> I hope you enjoy!!

 

 

James Barnes has an unfortunate name. It's not as unfortunate as, say, Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin. Of course, it's only recently become really unfortunate (sometimes, James tries to remember if he was proud of his name as a little boy - but those memories are just as empty as any other memory before he woke up in the hospital). But he still gives people a wink when he gives his full name.

"Don't worry," he says, "I'm not the international assassin." If it's someone that he's trying to charm, he adds: "but I can be if you want me to..."

It doesn't help that he's also missing his arm. But, hey, it’s not like most people even notice that, not with the fancy prosthesis he has, courtesy of the King of Wakanda. It’s just one of those odd coincidences that his neighbors and coworkers brush off easily enough, if they even mention it. They always laugh when he makes jokes about how he could be James Barnes.

“You, James?” they say. “Nah - you wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

He's the one the old ladies in his neighborhood call when they have a lightbulb out or a clogged sink or a broken faucet. He's quiet, and kind, and holds the door open for others at the little supermarket nearby. He’s clean, conscientious, a little bit shy and painfully normal - in short, the last person anyone would expect to be a 100-year-old Hydra assassin.

Plus, why would James Barnes decide, of all places, to hide out in Washington D.C., under his given name? It didn’t make sense. The guy was supposed to be a genius assassin, after all.

Ultimately though, it didn't matter. James Barnes The Assassin was dead. The young King of Wakanda had executed him a year ago, in revenge for the murder of the previous king. Of course, there were always conspiracy theories floating around - people that claimed that Barnes was hiding out in Wakanda or on the run with buddies, or living back in Brooklyn like a ghost. And, sometimes, James liked teasing at them when he gave people his name - liked seeing the momentary speculative gleam in their eyes before they registered how normal and boring he was.

Now, in a quiet neighborhood pharmacy near Embassy Row, the woman at the pharmacy counter just gives him a bored look. "Yes, Mr. Barnes. I have your prescription right here. Just give me 15 minutes to get this filled."

He smiles at her. It's a good day. He didn't have any nightmares last night and he'd woken up and known right where he was. He can spare a little charm today. "Thanks, Delores," he says, checking her tag. "I'll be waiting right over here whenever you call."

She humphs but James can see her lips twist up.

He drifts over to stand by the magazines, staring sightlessly at the glossy covers.

It pays for him to stay on the good side of the pharmacists. He's in here often enough, after all. There are pills for his arm and pills for his back and pills for the nightmares and pills for the anxiety and pills for his head and pills for his immune system. That’s what happens, he supposes, after almost dying and coming out of a nine-month coma, missing an arm.

Well, on top of all the other shit. Like not remembering anything about his life before waking up in the hospital. Like getting confused in the middle of the grocery store about where he was. Like this desolate feeling deep inside even when he knew his life was getting back on track and he should be happy.

When James tries to think about his past, about anything before he woke up in a too white, too nice room (because he may not actually remember anything, but he knows, somewhere deep down, that he could’ve never afforded a hospital room that nice. Long wards with overworked nurses and hard beds seem more familiar than glossy machinery and shiny monitors and attentive doctors and a fucking waterfall trailing down one wall of his room), he gets a deep ache in his stomach that feels like he lost something precious.

Sometimes, he’ll wake up from dreams where he’s just been searching in never-ending circles. He’s walking through snow and jungles and sand and forests and city streets that go on forever and he’s calling out a name and looking for a face - but no one ever answers. Sometimes, monsters are chasing him through dark hallways. Sometimes, he’s bleeding out from wounds he can’t see and he’s crying but no one ever comes. And, then, he wakes up, and he’s still alone. His therapist has said that he was looking for himself in those dreams. That probably makes sense.

But James still, in his gut, doesn’t think that is right. In a way he can't explain, it feels that he really is looking for someone else. Someone who he’s forgotten. Someone who’s apparently forgotten him, considering his visitor list at the hospital had stayed maddeningly empty during his entire stay. Granted, he had been in Wakanda and it wasn’t like people could just pop by for a visit - but there had been no phone calls and, when he had returned to D.C. finally, no one had come there either.

“Does my family know I’m here?” he’d asked when he’d woken up, and the therapist had exchanged glances with the doctor.

“You have no family, Mr. Barnes,” the therapist had said, flipping a page. “Your mother and father and three younger sisters died in a car accident several years ago. Right before you joined the military.”

The news should have probably made him feel something. But it hadn’t. He had just felt like they were wrong. He couldn't remember anything - but soul deep, he knew that there was someone who should've been here. There was someone who should have known that he’d woken up; someone who would have cared; someone who would be upset that James had been injured. He had spent the first few weeks, staring at the door, waiting for that person, whoever they could be, to walk through.

He had imagined the moment often. The person would come through the door. “Why didn’t you call me earlier?” they’d say, voice stretched out and annoyed. “I would’ve been here. You shouldn’t get into trouble without me around.”

But that person had never come.

"James Barnes," the pharmacist calls out.

A man standing in the waiting area gives him a look and James flashes a smile.

"Not him," he says, holds up two flesh hands (or one that looks like flesh anyway) to prove it.

The man chuckles and goes back to his phone.

Delores, the pharmacist, smiles pleasantly at him as he comes up. “Take care,” she tells him and he grins back.

“I’ll try, ma’am,” he says, glancing over the little orange and white and blue bottles at the bottom of the brown bag she hands him. He rolls the top down and holds it loosely in his right hand as he strides from the store. Outside, it’s bright and hot, sun burning through the last of the morning mist. The pill bottles rattle against his leg as he walks down the street, breathing deeply the scents of the bakery down the road. The Wakandan embassy is three blocks away, a short walk that clears his head.

There’s a lingering ache in his shoulders and he rolls the muscles as best he can. If it’s still bothering him at lunch, he’s allowed to double up on the little yellow pain pills. They’re not strong, but they’re typically enough to get his muscles back to normal. He can’t imagine how much worse it would be if it hadn’t been for the doctors in Wakanda.

The best therapists and doctors that money could buy had paraded before him in a never-ending stream. Wakanda, they had told him, is the most advanced nation in the world for medicine and technology. He is very lucky he ended up there. They had worked to fix his arm and his head - and had been wholly successful on the former of those counts and only partially on the latter.

According to the therapists, he had left the military at the ripe old age of 27, just a few years before. Since then, he had been working at a very secret, very private security firm that specialized in high profile clientele. Ten months ago, he’d been guarding the young king of Wakanda when he had been visiting South Africa. There had been an assassination attempt when a terrorist group had tried to blow up podium where the king had been speaking. James had saved his life by covering him with his own body. His arm had been blown off by the blast and a concrete brick had crashed into the back of his head.

“It’s a miracle you’re not dead,” the doctors had told him, repeatedly. Selective amnesia, they called it. He could remember the year and the president. He could drive a car and recite the first ten digits of pi. He could pledge allegiance to the flag and fire a gun and speak at least four languages fluently. But he couldn't remember his own name and the first time he'd looked into the mirror, he'd seen a stranger.

In his gratitude for saving his life, the king had arranged for him to be treated for his injuries in Wakanda. James had been in a coma for ten months. When he had woken up, the scientists of Wakanda had gifted him with a prosthetic to replace his missing arm. James wasn’t sure “prosthetic” was even the right word to describe his left arm. The arm fit smoothly into a shoulder socket that they had installed. Once it clicked in, James could wiggle the fingers and hold a pen and do a cartwheel, if he wanted. The skin of the arm matched his other arm perfectly - the fingers were even slightly warm to the touch and a dusting of dark hair covered the forearm. Unless he told people about his arm, very few people even knew he had a prosthetic.

When he had been accustomed to the new arm, the king had arranged for him to return to the states and had given him a job working security at the Wakandan embassy in Washington D.C. It was a smaller, newer facility, compared to its counterpart in Manhattan near the United Nations. After the Sokovia Accords and desertion of Captain America, the embassy had been built as a sign of cooperation and friendship between Wakanda and the United States. They said it would be a relaxing, quiet job where he could recover.

“You are the first non-Wakandan in history to hold such a post,” the Minister of Diplomatic Security had informed him gravely when he had given him James his security badge. “It is a great honor for a warrior, like yourself.”

“I don’t remember saving your king,” he’d confessed to him. The security badge he had been handed was vibranium, thin as paper and smooth as glass and shiny in the warm office light. He’d felt like a fraud.

The Minister had eyed him thoughtfully. “Your mind may not remember, James, but you have that same soul. That is what the king sees in you.”

So, that was that. He’s been working at the Wakandan embassy for almost eight months now. It’s low stress, sort of boring, really. Very few people would have the balls to go up against the nation when its king could rip their face off with one swipe. It’s a good job, though, and it pays well.

Maybe too well, James thinks. He makes enough to live comfortably off his salary and put a healthy chunk away in his savings account. They’d even given him a house near the embassy where he lives, saying it was part of the compensation package. James doubts that, - but it’s a beautiful house (if small - but it is just him) so he hasn’t complained yet.

The house had come fully furnished, with elegant and understated furniture, and art on all the walls. There had even been a record player in the corner with a full catalog of music from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. He turns it on sometimes: the big band calmed a bit of the ache in his chest that never quite left him alone.

The paintings on the walls were all beautiful too - all scenes of Brooklyn around the time of the Great Depression. There were skyline views, Brooklyn in every season, arching and lovely images that showed the breadth of the buildings. There were closer, more detailed images too: a corner store, a run down tenement, the docks at sunset, a long, rainy street, lit by lamps. James's favorite was a small painting that had been hung in the bedroom: a view of the sunset between two buildings, done from the perspective as if the artist was sitting inside a dirty window. It always made James feel desperately happy and desperately sad all at once.

He'd asked, right after he had moved in, who the artist was. None of the paintings were signed and Google hadn't helped. The representative from the Wakandan embassy had been just as unhelpful.

"They are from the king's collection," she had said, and hadn't answered any more questions on the topic.

It was a mystery that James liked to ponder sometimes. Who was the artist that painted Brooklyn with such care and such sadness? He imagined it as someone who had loved the city and suffered in the city - someone who had wandered far away, only to come home and find it changed beyond recognition.

But he was probably overthinking it.

Sometimes, it seemed that he clung too tightly to little things now - tiny bits of his world to imbue with significance when all the significance of his own life had been lost and forgotten.

Hell, he'd seen the American flag the other day and had felt such a rush fondness that he almost made himself blush. What kind of man gets sentimental over a flag?

The biography on the man who he had been before was painfully thin. The therapist had handed it over on their first session and James had stared numbly down at the slim stack of paper for a long time before he had been able to open it. He'd been born Ohio and had an unremarkable childhood. His parents and sister had died in a car crash when he was 18 and he'd joined the Army a week later. He'd had an unremarkable career, two tours in Afghanistan. And then, private security.

Sometimes James stared at the pages now, flipping them over as if he could find the detail he knew was missing. There was something, just on the edges of his memory, right in the corner of his eye that he could never quite make out.

If he just stared hard enough at the typed words, maybe the memory would materialize and maybe this would all make sense.

How did he go from this unremarkable man to someone who saves the king of Wakanda? But, if he was going to write his own autobiography, it would be just as brutally and depressingly short.

This is James. James only has one arm. James used to be a soldier. James now takes approximately 5000 pills a day to keep his body from rebelling and his mind from spazzing out. The pills make James feel like shit but he takes them anyway.

There would be a paragraph about his job at the embassy. A paragraph about his beautiful home that he didn't decorate. A paragraph about the psychiatrist who looks across the couch at him and asks him about nightmares he barely remembers. And then it would be done.

The guard at the gate of the embassy nods at him as James comes up the sidewalk and scans his badge. They greet each other briefly and James makes an effort to smile. These are the most regular interactions he has with people.

James gets to work promptly at 8 am each day in one of six black suits that he meticulously launders and presses (one for each day of the week and a spare). His job is easy. He mans the desk in the front lobby, checking people in and checking people out. For the employees and family members of employees, they swipe their badge across the scanner at the top of his desk, and they buzz through. For everyone else, there's a retinal scan and a fingerprint scanner.

It's mindless work, but he enjoys it. His coworkers are prompt and professional and quiet. He likes that too.

S'Yan is the one he does most of his shifts with. He's quiet and guarded but kind - never questioning James's odd assignment at the embassy. James is somewhat convinced that S'Yan could kill him with his thumb. Like most mornings, today he doesn't make small talk, just says a quiet hello and turns back to the security cameras. With the motion, James can see the slight metallic flash of the semiautomatic that's holstered to S'Yan's side.

James doesn't carry a gun. They'd offered, in the beginning, and he had refused. The embassy was well defended - the last thing they needed was an ex-soldier who couldn't even remember firing a gun carrying one of those around.

James unbuttons his jacket and sits down in the black chair behind the desk. He has a view of the outside street, blue sky and carefully manicured lawns. Behind him, S'Yan murmurs softly into the intercom and the workday begins.

All in all, James thinks, there should be no reason for the empty longing that sits in his belly every day.

 

* * *

 

CNN World Report. Evening news. August 18, 2017.

"Tomorrow," says the news anchor pertly, "is the one year anniversary of the execution of assassin and terrorist James Buchanan Barnes by the nation of Wakanda. Anti-death penalty advocates are expected to demonstrate in front of the Wakandan embassy tomorrow, in protest of the nation's use of capital punishment.

"The Wakandan embassy released a statement, saying that James Buchanan Barnes was given a fair trial and that the execution was in keeping with Wakandan laws. There has been some controversy over Wakanda's refusal to extradite Barnes to the United States, given that Barnes was a US citizen - but the US has declined to pursue any action along that route, stating that 'Barnes was a terrorist who committed heinous crimes against his country and the world. Given the severity of crimes committed against the Wakandan people, the US has posthumously waived their right to extradition.'

"A statement from Steven Rogers, the enhanced super soldier formerly known as Captain America, was emailed to this station and others last night from a secure server, saying: 'What the world did to my friend, James Buchanan Barnes, was a terrible, shameful tragedy. I deeply mourn his loss and am still working to clear his name and bring justice to those who those who imprisoned and tortured him.'

"Rogers and his second command, Sam Wilson, were both most recently reported to be in Myanmar, assisting with clean up from the devastating earthquake just a few months ago. Rogers remains on the FBI's most wanted list with a reward of $500,000 for any information leading to his capture."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will be up fully by tomorrow as I finish making sure all the formatting works!


	2. Chapter 2

It starts out as a bad morning.

James wakes up and he's in the snow. He's running through drifts and cold caves and someone is yelling for him but he can't hear them. He just knows he needs to get to them. They're just out of his reach and he stretches and stretches and...

The world spins and he falls out of bed. His legs are tangled in the blankets and when he sucks in air, his lungs burn. He can't stop shivering, full body tremors that clack his teeth and push against his eyes. He reaches blindly, knocks over his lamp, and manages to find the switch. The overhead light flicks on and there's no snow.

He's not lying in deep, never-ending icy white drifts. No blood streaks trail across his sheets. He reaches out and his shoulder is a clean and smoothly artificial, no exposed wires dragging or charred metal sparking. Why would there be? The cream rug is warm and slightly scratchy beneath him and there's gray light between the soft blue curtains. His hands match.

The clock says 6:38 am.

He gets up. There's no more sleep to be had.

The pills are automatic now. He stands at his bathroom counter and shakes his before-breakfast dosage. One blue. One red. And two...

He curses out loud, then looks on the floor, under the sink. Anywhere a small white pill bottle would've rolled. It's one of the ones he got yesterday. He knows it was in the bag. He wouldn't have walked out of the pharmacy without checking, right?

But it's nowhere.

Well. It's not that big of a deal, right? It was just his muscle relaxant. Or whatever it is. Something fancy that the pharmacy gets in from Wakanda just for him. It's to help with the never-ending pain that his shoulder and back would have if left to their own devices.

Once, he’d forgotten to take one of these pills. By the end of the day, he had been achy and sore, like a teenager with growing pains. His hand had been shaky and he'd accidentally broken a cup when he'd knocked against it. But it wasn't the end of the world.

There's no time to go pick up a new prescription this morning. Not with the protest out in front of the embassy today. Maybe not even enough time to go until he's on his way home. He'll just have to survive. On the way out the door, he takes a couple Tylenol and hopes that will stave off the worst of it.

The protest is already going when he turns the corner to the embassy. They haven't opened the gates - probably won't today. There's some press in their vans and there's signs and shouting and all of it makes James feel very small. He scans his badge at the guard gate and slips inside.

S'Yan is already there, calmly sitting at his desk by the security screens like this is any other day.

"Lots of people," James says, his eyes cutting to the side, out the windows where he can just see the signs of the protesters over the fence wall. They're not being rowdy or violent but his neck itches all the same.

S'Yan turns from the screens and observes him frankly. "They won't get through the gates," he says. "You do not have to worry."

Is he that obvious?

James nods and sits down at his desk. His back is already aching. It's going to be a long day.

He doesn't have time to go to the pharmacy.

By the time he gets off work, his hand is shaking and his shoulders feel like they're strung tight like a piano wire. His neck feels twisted and stiff and his legs are lead weights. He can hear the protest still going out the front, so he slides out the back, through the gardens. It's quiet back there, tall trees and waterfalls surrounding him. He walks slowly, appreciating the calm. The back exit lets him out into a green slope that heads down to the street. There's an intersection up ahead as the road slowly winds behind the embassies on the embankment above.

He's almost to the street, thinking about Thai food for dinner and if he turned on the dishwasher before he left and the throbbing ache in his shoulders and thighs, when he hears squealing brakes and a tremendous bang as metal screeches together. It makes him jerk, makes him reach for a side arm that isn't there. That he doesn't consciously even remember ever being there.

He hears someone scream, sharp and young and scared, and then the unmistakable pop-pop of a firearm and he heads to the intersection at a run. His head may only be half there but, somehow, he knows his body will know what to do. Muscle memory from years of a forgotten war.

Three cars are crumpled together, colored metal crushed together like a child's toy melting in the sun. An SUV and a Mustang are both squishing a minivan between them. A light pole is half toppled, wires dragging across the asphalt, sparking yellow and orange in the half evening light. Slick gasoline is spilling into the street, turning it shiny and dangerous. Three men in ski masks are exchanging fire with the man in a Mustang and a woman keeps screaming.

"Stop! Stop! Please help me," she’s saying and she's tugging on the back door of her minivan's handle.

Bullets are pinging off a metal and a jerking live wire from the downed telephone pole flicks against the spilling oil and a flame goes up, orange and fast.

Her kid's in the car, James realizes, panic grabbing his own lungs. Her kid's in the car and there's fire and bullets and no one is helping. The Mustang had folded in on itself against the door of the minivan, sealing it shut. There's an older woman across the street, dialing on her phone, but this is a back road and it's after rush hour and everyone is in the front of the buildings. There's no one else.

He's across the street in seconds. The fire is leaping and the woman is screaming louder and the gun fight is moving toward the side street. "Ma'am, stand back. Let me help you."

She's sobbing but she's moving back.

Smoke is starting to pour, from the fire on the gasoline and from the engine of the SUV. Probably where the leaking gasoline is coming from.

Now that he's close, he can hear the kid crying inside the car, hiccuped wails that make his heart crack open. He tugs uselessly on the handle but, just like he thought, it's jammed tight. The Mustang won't let it open. There's a whoosh and the SUV's engine goes up in flames and James can feel the heat from fifteen feet away.

James has no time to think. He turns and shoves the mustang's hood with both hands. The car shifts back three feet, metal squealing as it pulls apart and scrapes over asphalt. He pushes again and it slides back five feet. The hood is crushing inward where his hands are but it's back almost eight feet now and he has enough room to get at the slider door of the van. The back end is smashed together but he grabs the handle and yanks - and the entire door comes off in his hand, like tearing off a scab. He tosses the door aside and leans in.

He's grabbing the kid, car seat and all, tearing it free from the straps, when something hot and sharp burns across his ribs. The force knocks the air out of him and he staggers hard, just managing to keep his feet.

"C'mon," he shouts to the mom, and runs for the low wall that lines the street. He hears another shot slams into the wall next to him and he jumps behind the barrier, sliding against the hard stone just as an explosion sets off in the darkening street. James ends up on the ground, kid clutched to his chest and the mom curled against the kid.

She is saying thank you over and over, between tears and gasps, and James feels his side burning, a streak of hot fire, where he'd been shot, but he can't think about that. All he can think about is how the entire door had come off into his hand, how the massive piece of metal had been as easy to hold as his grocery bag, how he had tossed it to the side like it was nothing more than a child's toy. And he realizes, as he hears sirens racing down the street and cops shouting and the embassy guards spilling from the front, that his muscles are no longer aching.

In between giving his statement to the cops and his boss at the embassy and making sure the mom and her kid were on an ambulance and her husband was coming, James actually ends up forgetting about the pain in his side.

He gets home, takes off his black jacket, and gets a nasty shock when his white shirt is soaked in blood from armpit to navel. It's half dried, making the fabric stiff and his fingers are clumsy pulling the cotton up from his belt. The shirt rips under his grip when he jerks it. Pieces of bloody cotton fall to the floor and he stares at his side. He can see where the bullet had scraped over his ribs, a thick bloody, burn about five inches long. But it's nothing more than a mostly healed scab now. The wound looks days old, not hours. He prods at the edges. The skin is tender but it doesn't hurt anymore.

That night, he dreams of snow and wind whipping past his face. Someone is calling his name, growing fainter like they're being pulled away. He runs and runs and he never finds them.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, he takes his handful of pills and calls the pharmacy on the way out the door.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Barnes," a perky worker says. "We have to special order those pills from Wakanda. We won't be able to get a new bottle for another two weeks."

James hangs up and realizes that he's bent the stairway railing, where he had been clutching. He pulls his hand back and sees the shape of his fingers in the dark metal.

"What the hell," he says and stares at his flesh hand and the bent metal. It had barely taken any effort. He hadn't even realized he was doing it. On his way to work, he forces himself to be consciously aware of how much pressure he's placing on door handles.

The shootout and the car crash are on the news, nothing too detailed because crime in DC has been on the upswing. There's a blurry video of him handing the kid over to paramedics while the mother cries. The announcer notes that it took place yards from the Wakandan embassy and the protest on anniversary of the James Barnes execution - but says there was no known connection.

Ever since SHIELD collapsed under Hydra and then Captain America had gone on the run, it felt like new villains were slinking out of the shadows every day. He'd read somewhere that DC had the highest number of Hydra cells per capita of anywhere in the US. Authorities were finding new hidey-holes every week: some as old as World War II and some as young as the new millennium.

He googles the Sokovia Accords that day, during the slow period after lunch. It's mostly speculation about the movements of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson. He finds a full text of the Accords and closes out when he realizes it's over 600 pages long.

"Do the Sokovia Accords apply to anyone who has powers?" he finally types and bites his thumbnail.

The answer seems to be up for debate. Some of the language in the Accords indicates it's intended to apply to all people with "enhanced abilities" but the enforcement, thus far, had been limited to organized "vigilante militias" or enhanced individuals. The Avengers, of course, had been brought to heel under the Accords. People were also referencing certain groups in Egypt and India and Ivory Coast that had been placed under the jurisdiction of the Accords. Notably, though, despite being one of the signing members of the Accords, King T'Challa of Wakanda had not been asked to asked to submit to any oversight or had disciplinary actions brought against him.

"How do you get enhanced abilities?" he googles. That's even less help. For some it's genetic; for others, it's environmental or the result of science experiments. Some think that enhanced abilities are all a government conspiracy. Some think that everyone has the potential inside - it's just a matter of figuring out how to unlock it. Some think that it's all an illness that can be caught and cured.

James closes the tab and studies his hands.

That night, when he's sure most people in his neighborhood are in bed, he changes into workout clothes and goes to the gym that sits on the edge of his block.

He's used it a couple times and the owner had liked him - said he recognized a fellow vet and given him a key for after hours. It's small, with yellow lighting and thin carpet and smudgy windows. There are weight machines and treadmills and not much else.

He tries the weight press first. He stacks up about what he figures a car door weighs and tries to lift. It's easy. He gets up and stacks more. Tries again. Stacks more. Repeat. He runs out of weights and he's still barely winded. He sits on the ground by the windows and stares out at the deserted streets.

Was this what he had forgotten when he had woken up from that long coma? Was this the missing piece of his life that had never made sense? Had the Wakandan doctors known? Or had all of this come after? A biological reaction to life-threatening stress?

He tries the treadmill, cranks it up until he feels like he's sprinting, pushes the incline until he feels like he's running up a mountain. He runs and he runs and the humid air of the gym presses around him and makes sweat roll down his back - but his lungs fill easily and his legs don't burn and there's no stitch in his side.

He runs until the clock says 4 am and then walks back to his house and showers. He's not tired, he realizes. He feels alert and chipper and like he could do it all again. He drinks orange juice and takes his pills and watches the sunrise.

After work that day, he goes to a bar and orders a shot of whiskey. Something about the action feels familiar, even though he knows he never has. After the accident, when he drinks, it's two fingers of scotch in a tumbler and he drinks it slow to savor. Getting drunk doesn't go well with his medication.

The shot burns going down and he waits. He gives it twenty minutes and then walks to the bathroom, making himself do the toe to heel walk that cops have drunks do. It's easy. He goes back to his seat and orders another shot. And then another. And then another.

After his fourth shot, the bartender is looking at him funny and he feels painfully clear headed so he puts his coat back on and heads for the door.

A guy sitting near the exit gives him an once over, big green eyes and light brown hair. Another night, James may have paused to say hello - today, he pushes past with his eyes down.

It's after sundown and all the lights are on. He sticks his hands in his pockets and wanders, finds himself drifting toward the streets where there are always reports of drive by shootings and drug deals and muggings. He doesn't walk quickly, but he doesn't meander.

He doesn't really have a plan. Maybe at one point in his life, he had loved plans. Maybe he had made them obsessively and checked them over and analyzed every detail. There's no plan here. He can't think past the way he's no longer in pain and the memory of running and running in the gym. He's following instinct now, letting this new feeling in his body lead him on a road that feels hauntingly familiar.

There's a smell that cities have. He can't explain it, but it gets into his nose and stays there, lingers like a memory. They say smell produces the strongest impressions, that those scents stay in the memory the longest.

It doesn't take long to find what he hadn't even really acknowledged he was looking for. He hears shouting from an alley, the muffled thump of fists and he rounds the corner.

Three guys have a smaller blonde guy by the scruff of his collar, holding him up like a drowned cat. They're laughing, pushing him against the side of a dumpster.

"Hey," James says. He doesn't take his hands out of his pockets.

The guys turn around.

"What's up?" one of the guys says. "This isn't your business, man."

"He's a friend of mine," James lies. He doesn't think he's ever seen the kid before but something about the bright blonde hair and the delicate wrists feels primally familiar.

"Really? You're friends with a hooker?" The biggest guy is pushing up his sleeves.

"Yep." James takes his hands out but keeps his stance loose. "You should apologize and move on."

"Nah, man," the first guy says.

The big guy steps forward and takes a swing.

James catches his hand, uses it to pull the guy close. "Don't say I didn't warn you," he says and then lifts the guy by the front of his shirt and tossed him into his friend who's lunging forward.

They both sprawl across the ground and James takes the opportunity to pick up a thick metal trash can lid. It's round and feels familiar in his hands. He throws it like a frisbee at the first guy, still holding the blonde kid. It hits him his face, sends him sprawling with blood spurting up from a broken nose.

The blonde kid scrambles out of his grip and stares at his three attackers, then at James.

"I can take care of myself," he says. He's holding himself stiffly, like he's hurt and afraid and James is the big, bad wolf.

None of the guys are moving.

James tries a smile at him but he's not sure if it comes out. "Be safe, kid," is all he says and then he leaves.

It feels like the beginning of atonement.

He walks all the way home.

 

* * *

 

James sits on the low couch in his therapist's office, picking at a hole in his jeans. "I think I want to volunteer or something," he tells her. "Give something back to the community."

"I think that's a wonderful idea, James. What did you have in mind?"

 

* * *

 

In mid September, James realizes he's bitten off more than he can chew.

He'd purchased a police scanner at the end of August, the week after he'd kicked the asses of those guys ganging up on the prostitute. After work, he'd driven all the way into Delaware and paid cash for the thing at a strip mall electronic store.

He had set it up in his office, learned how to tune it just right.

His sleep patterns have changed along with everything else - he doesn't need as much sleep. One or two hours a night is all he needs and he can easily stay awake for two or three days at a time. So, most of the time after that week, he ends up in his office, listening to the calls come in.

He'd ordered a black ski mask from Amazon but then had decided it looked too scary. Also, he hadn't liked the way it had covered his mouth and nose - it reminded him of a muzzle. So he'd gone by a costume store and ended up picking out a Princess Bride Westley costume. He doesn't think he's ever seen The Princess Bride, but he likes the shape of the mask, how it leaves his mouth free, and the bandana that can tuck over his hair. He has black jeans, a black pullover hoodie, and black gloves that complete the ensemble.

As days tick on and he always finds himself arriving too late or needing to hide quickly to duck away from the cops, he realizes that the places he can help the most are the ones where no one is calling the cops.

He ends up lurking in the back alleys and rooftops of the sketchier areas of D.C., just listening. His hearing is as enhanced as the rest of him and he can hear some dumb kids planning a mugging or a gun cocking a block over.

Tonight, he's on the roof of an apartment building right on the edge of the old warehouse district, listening to the conversations tumbling below him. There's discussion of dinner plans and two people fucking three floors down. There's a girl talking to her mom and promising everything is okay. And, then, a voice saying, softly like a greeting: "Hail Hydra."

James's attention swivels to the conversation. Two men, a block over, are walking toward the center of the warehouse district. Silent as a cat, James moves in their direction, leaping across the narrow gaps between buildings.

They're discussing payment terms for a package. If James hadn't heard the first part, he would've assumed it was something innocuous.

He finds a drain pipe and shimmies to the ground, following a few steps behind them as they turn toward a dark series of warehouses that look abandoned.

"We move them tonight," the raspier one says. "Cops are getting nosy. They’ll find this place soon if we're not careful. Someone filed a noise complaint about a screaming kid the other day."

The other man chuckles. "I assume you took care of the screamer?"

"Won't be screaming anymore," the first man says and James sees red.

They pause before the warehouse door and one man does something with his thumb and a slim electronic keyboard is suddenly uncovered, looking out of place in the rundown doorway. There's a beeping noise when he punches some buttons and the door swings inward.

As soon as they start to go through the door, James starts running. It's a slow swinging door and he manages to catch the handle right before it clicks shut. Silently, he eases it back open and slips inside.

The interior is dim and drafty, street light coming through the windows and making shadows off of stacks of crates. The two men are already several feet ahead, still talking, and they're headed toward the back of the room.

For the first time, James realizes he doesn't have any weapons. Knocking sense into petty crooks and abusive husbands doesn't require much more than his fists. But this? He hesitates, looking over his shoulder toward the door. Maybe he should slip out. Call the cops? Anonymous tips are a thing. He slides his foot backwards and then he hears the kid crying as a door in the back opens.

It's a muffled sound, like the kid pulled his shirt over his face or buried his mouth in his elbow to keep someone from hearing his sobs. The sound of pain grates against his insides and he knows that leaving isn't an option that his conscience will let him live with. There's a length of rebar laying against a wall and he grabs it, twirls it between his hands once. It's not as heavy as a bat and it's a little too long to have good balance, but it'll work.

When the men sound like they've stopped walking, he slinks along the back wall. He can hear the men talking: the two he followed and at least three more. They're discussing moving the kids and the payment they're going to get and how that'll fund their operation. The way that they're talking about the kids like possessions makes his skin crawl.

He listens past the men. The kids are in a separate room, maybe just a few feet beyond where the men are all sitting. He hears a cigarette being lit and he ducks, sliding low around a tower of crates. The kids are being held in what looks like a manager's office. It has clear windows and a desk and he can see two kids huddled against the far wall.

He needs to create a distraction, he realizes. James grabs another piece of rebar and tosses it as hard as he can. It connects somewhere in the dark and he hears crates tumble.

"What the fuck?" one of the men says and three of them leave to check it out.

He slinks up behind the remaining two, knocks the first one out across the back of the head. He slams the second against the wall, feels him go limp in his hands. In one motion, he rips off the handle on the office door, pulls the entire door away. There are about a dozen kids all staring up at him, wide eyed.

Cold steel touches the back of his head.

"Who the fuck are you?” a raspy voice says. "Put your hands up."

James turns slowly, hands coming up.

The man gapes at him. "You!" he stammers. And then, his voice goes even raspier and he says something in Russian, slow and methodical, like he's reading through a list. He's staring at James like he's expecting something. "Soldat?" he says at the end.

At that moment, there's a thud and then even the dim lights go out.

The muzzle of the gun slides away from his head as Raspy Voice turns to see what had happened.

"Sorry," James says in English. "I don't speak Russian." James spins, kicking outward and hears the man's knee crunch.

Screaming, the man goes down and then there's a bang as the gun goes off.

James feels a hot punch in his right arm and he grunts, staggering backward. He grabs with his left hand, feels the tear in the fabric and the shooting pain when he presses. Blood is soaking the shirtsleeve.

Raspy Voice is on his knees and James makes himself take a step forward and kick him sharply in the head, knocking him out cold.

He can hear shouting and small explosions, echoing around the warehouse walls. It could be the cops; it could be other Hydra agents. His prosthetic hand is still locked around the bullet hole in his flesh arm, but he staggers and turns, going back to the room with the kids.

None of them have moved. He can barely see their faces in the darkness.

"Okay," he says. "I'm here to rescue you. We have to get you all out of here. Uh." He tries to remember what he's seen kids do. "Grab hands and follow me?"

He's leading them along the side, telling them all to stay quiet and low, when the lights come back on.

"Over there!" someone shouts and the footsteps change direction, coming closer.

James drops his grip on the bullet wound, pulling up the piece of rebar in his prosthesis. "When I say run," he tells the children, "head for the outside and don't stop running until you find a cop, okay?"

Dark shapes, silhouetted against the floodlights, hurry toward him and then stop.

"You're not Hydra," a voice says.

James squints, mask rubbing against his nose. "No, motherfucker, I am not."

The guy steps forward so James can see him. He's tall and muscular and has a pair of what looks like flight goggles on his face. He pushes them up and James feels his throat catch.

Sam Wilson. International fugitive. Right hand man of Steve Rogers.

"It's okay, man," Sam Wilson says, holding out his hands. "We're trying to rescue the kids too."

Another shadowy figure steps out of the dark and James suddenly feels pinned and exposed. He takes a step backward.

Sam Wilson is smiling like he's trying to be calming. "We're all on the same side here. It looks like you're hurt. We can..."

James throws the rebar as hard as he can. He's not really aiming, just wanting to throw them off - both of the men duck. Then, he turns and takes off running. They'll take care of the kids, he knows. The kids will be safe. But James doesn't want to get mixed up with actual terrorists. That had never been the intention.

"Hey! Stop!"

He's almost to the door when big hands grab him from behind, spin him around and hold him fast.

It's the other man. The one who had been standing next to Sam Wilson. He's wearing a dark blue mask that covers most of his upper face and cheeks. But his eyes are so blue.

The masked man has his mouth open like he was going to say something and then forgot. He's just staring at James, like he's found something unexpectedly wonderful.

James thinks he should be afraid. The guy is huge and obviously faster than him and he works with terrorists. But, instead, part of him wants to melt into the grip. He wants to sag forward and rest, truly rest, for the first time since he woke up from his coma.

The man licks his lips and James finds himself following the movement.

His head starts pounding, then, a steady ache that he can remember from the first days at the hospital, swelling up between his eyes and pushing against the inside of his skull.

"Just..." the man says and James lashes out with his left leg.

He kicks the man's left knee in and twists out of his grip, sprinting for the door. He bangs out into the cold night air and doesn't stop running until he reaches his house.

This time, the man doesn't follow.

The bullet went straight through the meat of his bicep. It's neat, one hole in the front of his arm and one in the back. His clothes are soaked with blood but the skin is already knitting back together and James knows it won't even scar. He cleans it with antiseptic and bandages it anyway because that feels like something one should do when there's a bullet hole through their arm.

He dreams that night of running through a huge jungle that turns into snow that turns into a forest that turns into city alley ways. He's calling and calling and he turns a corner and he sees blood on the ground. He stops, bends to put his fingers in it and stands up. And then he's looking into the blue eyes from the warehouse.

"Where are you?" the blue eyes say.

And then he's falling, tumbling so fast that the he can't breathe and all he can see is white. He falls and he falls until he jerks awake in bed and his clock is ticking and the moon is bright through the window.

He calls in sick to work, the first time ever, because he figures getting shot is a pretty good excuse. But he can't say that so he fakes a cough over the phone. When he hangs up, he only feels a little guilty.


	3. Chapter 3

Two nights later, his arm has just a tiny red pucker where a bullet hole had been. He stands in the mirror and flexes his arm, waits for pain. There is none.

When he leaves his apartment, it's after midnight and the moon is a tiny slip of a thing. He walks sixteen blocks and then uses a drainpipe and a rusty fire escape in a back alley to pull himself to the roof of a building.

He sits on the roof, back to the street and listens to the city. His eyes slide shut and he feels the cold night air on his face and the slight moisture of fog against his skin. It's getting on in the year. Soon it'll be winter and freezing and James wonders if he can bring blankets to the homeless communities he sees.

"Hi."

James jerks up, his fists raised and on his feet before he even sees the threat.

The man from the warehouse lifts his hands, palms up and bare in the night. He doesn't look threatened by James though, his limbs are relaxed and easy. He's wearing that same dark blue mask. His uniform is the same color, deep midnight blue with hints of gray. There's a thick utility belt and most of the uniform looks like it's hiding armor beneath it - but somehow sleeves are slightly loose, like the man is used to pushing the cuffs up to his elbows. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." His voice is deep and gentle and James finds himself relaxing.

"What do you want?" James asks, voice sharp. He doesn't sit down.

"I wanted to see if you were okay. I saw you were bleeding when you ran out of there."

"I heal fast," James says and shrugs. "Sorry for pushing in on your op."

The guy shakes his head. "You helped us out a lot. Got those guys distracted so we could get the drop."

It's a lie but James takes the peace offering for what it is.

"You work with Sam Wilson?" He's curious. They must have an op in the city if they were around to pick up on that warehouse.

"Yep." The guy sits down where he is, against one of the metal vents. He folds his legs and rests his elbows on his knees so that he can prop his chin up with his hands. He suddenly looks very young and James wants to ask where his coat is. "Been working with him for a long time now."

"People say he's a terrorist."

"What do you say?" His gaze is patient and so blue, eyes glinting in the dark and pulling at James's memories.

James looks away. "I don't know."

The man grins. "Well that's a start at least. What's your name?"

"James," he says before he can stop himself.

"No secret identity for you?"

James shrugs. "Haven't really thought of one yet. Who are you?"

The guy looks down. "I've been going by Nomad," he says and his voice twists at the end like this is a joke. "I thought it sounded like a pirate."

And James can't stop the snort. He slides to sit down too, stretches his legs out in front of him. The ground is cold and dirty and he should be focusing on the sounds below - not the man across him. "That's a real dangerous sounding name," his tone edging just this side of sarcasm.

Nomad smiles, just one side of his mouth lifting. Wind whisks by and makes his sleeves ruffle around his pale wrists. "I don't want to be dangerous," he says.

"Isn't that what you're going for if you're a part of Steve Rogers's merry men?"

The broad shoulders tense and then relax. "I don't think so. I think we want to help people and our governments made us criminals because we had different perspectives on how to do that." He pauses, hesitates. "I never wanted to be a criminal - but they didn't leave me much of a choice if I was going to do what I thought was right."

"So what, now you have nothing better than to hang out on rooftops with the local vigilantes? Don't you have kittens to save?"

Nomad laughs, so soft it barely carries across the roof. "I told you. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I told you. I'm fine." James likes Nomad's laugh. "You can go back to saving the world."

"I'm comfortable right here." He wiggles his ass as if to prove it and James can't stop his answering laugh. Nomad grins and then looks at him dead on. "Is that what you're doing? Vigilantism?"

"You don't have any place to judge."

Nomad shrugs. "Why though?"

James thinks this is the longest conversation he's had that he can remember. Well, outside of his therapist anyway. He spends his days at the embassy in relative silence and the friendly chatter he strikes up at bars and around the neighborhood aren't conversations. Nomad makes him feel warm, like some deep cold part of him has been turned toward a crackling campfire and he just wants to lean closer. So his mouth opens and he spills. "I woke up from a coma," he says, "awhile ago. And I realized just a few weeks ago that I think the accident that put me there - I think it gave me abilities. Not like Hulk or Scarlet Witch or anything. But I'm strong and I'm fast and I don't hurt easy. And, I figure, if I can do all those things, I should be helping people."

"I understand that," Nomad says, his eyes are unfocused, seeing something only he can. "Sometimes you wish you could turn a blind eye to all the problems. But you just can't."

"And sometimes," James says, voice even softer. He feels vulnerable, stripped down to his bones with the weariness of carrying this for so long. "Sometimes I just want to feel like I'm not alone."

Nomad leans forward. He doesn't reach out but his eyes are earnest. "You're not alone now."

 

* * *

 

Nomad shows up again two weeks later, right when James is punching out a would-be rapist. The guy grabbed the woman as she was walking to her beat up Honda from her third floor walk up, night school textbooks in her arms.

James had heard her wishing her 12 year old and her eight year old good night before she's slipped out. She'd told the 12 year old to watch over her sister and the words had sent a pang deep within him. So when the guy had grabbed her hair and dragged her into a dark alley and her textbooks went flying, James had dropped down and slammed the guy with his prosthesis before he had finished unbuttoning his pants.

"You're lucky I don't tear your dick off," he says when the guy is on the ground, half dazed with blood dripping down his face and his eyes only half open.

"That sounds messy," says Nomad.

When James turns, Nomad is at the entrance to the alley and he's helping the woman pick up her textbooks.

"Are you okay?" he asks her. He doesn't touch her - just offers the books and looks at her with those earnest eyes.

She wipes her brown eyes and nods. One eye is bruised and darkening and her lip is split. She's trembling but her legs are steady.

"We'll take care of this guy," Nomad says. "He won't touch you again."

When she's gone, Nomad walks over and stares down at the limp body, nudges it over with his toe. "What do you do with these guys?" he says and he sounds curious.

"I don't kill people," James tells him. He looks down, almost feels ashamed for a second in front of this man who's probably killed dozens. But then he lifts his chin and looks Nomad square in the eye. "I don't like killing people. So I don't."

Nomad's mouth goes soft. "Neither do I," he agrees quietly. Then he looks back down at the guy.

He's moaning now, limbs twitching.

"I have an idea," Nomad says and then hits the guy again, enough to knock him back into quiet. Then he lifts him over his shoulder, like he doesn't weigh anymore than a sack of flour. As he walks, he presses something in his cowl and talks quietly into his earpiece.

James trails behind. It's dark and, in this part of town, no one pays them any attention, but he still feels exposed. Nomad is confident in his uniform in a way that he envies.

There's a police station three blocks over and Nomad stops, about twenty feet from the fence, careful to stay out of the weak light cast by the street lamps.

"By now," he tells James. "Those cops would've received a carefully edited surveillance tape video of that man dragging that woman into the alley. Don't worry - all of our involvement has been removed. And, my friends are scouring all other surveillance footage for any other crimes this guy may have committed. The cops will receive those too. It'll be enough to get him locked up for awhile." He drops the guy against the gate, leaving him slumped upright like a drunk.

James looks down at him. There's a street lamp a few feet away and he can see much better than he could in that dark alley. The guy's face is beat in, nose cracked and both eyes swollen. Blood is trailing from his mouth and nose and there's a deep bruise going back into his hairline.

Then, Nomad smiles at James, real and kind. "See? No killing necessary."

James turns and walks away. He doesn't break into a run but it's a near thing. His legs eat up the ground and he makes it to an alley before he bends over and throws up. It's stringy and chunky and stings his nose and he feels his face burning. He gags again, feels just bile come up. He spits and stands up again, leaning his forehead against the brick wall.

Nomad is standing behind him. He can hear him shuffling like he doesn't know what to do.

"Are you okay?" the other man finally asks. He sounds like he cares.

James wipes his mouth. "That guy's face," he says, needing to explain. "I didn't. I haven't done that to anyone. I just."

Nomad frowns and moves closer. "That guy was a piece of shit," he says. "No one's gonna cry over him."

"I don't like it," James says. "Killing. Hurting. There's too much of that already."

"Well. You just may be in the wrong business then," Nomad says. His face is honest and he doesn't seem like he's trying to judge - just like he's trying to help. "You don't have to do this, James. You can just... go home and live your life and not worry. It would be okay. You don't have to do this."

This is the first time, James realizes, that Nomad's used his name.

"People need protection," he just says back. But it's not just that. How does he explain that even though he doesn't remember 90% of his life, he has this aching feeling like he needs to put something right? Like he needs to rebalance the universe or repay some great debt that he has somehow forgotten. He's seeking atonement for the unknown.

Nomad purses his mouth and James watches it, watches how his cheeks crinkle and his big hands fist inside his gloves. "You're a good man," Nomad says quietly. "But you shouldn't feel obligated." He reaches into a pouch on his belt and pulls out a white handkerchief and offers it over. "Here," he says. "I should go. But don't..." he hesitates. "Can I see you again?"

James takes the handkerchief, fingers brushing against Nomad's over the cloth. The fabric is silky and clean and it niggles at his memory. "You know where to find me," he says instead of pursuing that thought.

Nomad salutes, a crisp snap of his wrist that makes James want to return it, the ache of muscle memory. Then the other man turns and jumps smoothly up to a fire escape hanging over the alley. A few more jumps and he's out of sight.

And James is left alone with just the handkerchief and a warm feeling in his fingers from where they touched Nomad. James goes home. He washes the handkerchief carefully and lays it on his bedside table.

 

* * *

 

Nomad finds James again three nights later. "Do you like baseball?" he says, leaning against the wall and offering James an apple like they're on a school yard during lunch break.

"Not a big fan of the Nationals," James says, tosses the apple from hand to hand. He doesn't remember ever going to a game but his eyes always snag on sports articles and, when he's home after work, he finds himself flipping on a game sometimes. The background noise soothes him deeply in a way he doesn't fully understand.

"Yeah? What team you into?" Nomad pulls a small knife from his belt and peels the red skin from his apple in easy strips, and then cutting off a chunk and biting into it.

James hesitates, distracted by the way Nomad's lips curl around the piece of fruit. He bites into his own apple to cover. "I like the Dodgers," he finally says, after he has chewed and swallowed. He hasn't really picked a team, if he's being honest. But something about the Dodgers always catches him.

Nomad is smiling, cheeks bunching up against his mask. "Good team," he says, popping another piece of apple into his mouth.

"What about you?"

Those big shoulders shrug. "I find myself always rooting for the underdog," he says. "I like when the little guy wins."

Something warm blooms inside James's chest and he ducks his head. "Yeah," he says to the ground. "I like that too."

 

* * *

 

In late October, Nomad brings him a black tac jacket.

"It's getting cold," he explains, while James eyes it warily. "And this will be warmer. And it's a little bit better protection than a sweatshirt." He rubs the back of his neck. "It's a gift."

The jacket fits perfectly when James puts it on. He looks up and smiles. "Thank you," he says, putting as much sincerity as he can into the words. This is the first gift he can remember receiving. "You didn't have to do this."

Nomad ducks his head and smiles. "I know I didn't have to. I wanted to. Just promise me you'll wear it."

James meets his gaze, wonders at the care he can see in Nomad's gaze. "I will."

At work the next day, S'Yan smiles at him, just a tiny twitch of his mouth. "You seem happier," he says as James sits down at his desk.

James smiles back. "I am." His gaze drifts to the TV and he sees a report about Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson helping evacuate a village ahead of a hurricane in Central America. He watches for a moment, wonders if Nomad is there and feels his heart quicken a little in his chest.

He has it bad.

 

* * *

 

On Halloween night, Nomad grins at him, carefree and excited. "C'mon," he says. "No one will notice our masks today."

James agrees - he's finding it harder and harder to resist Nomad.

They go to Georgetown, walk along the bars and nightclubs and no one looks twice at them. It's noisy and crowded and James finds himself leaning into Nomad, instinctively seeking out the comfort. Nomad has his body turned, just a little, as if accepting James's weight.

They find a bar, mostly quiet, near the end of the street and they find a table in the back. It's all oak paneling and gas lamps and candles and deep rich carpet that squishes under James's boots. Nomad gets a Coke and James gets a scotch.

"It doesn't do anything now," James confides, after he swirls a sip around his mouth. "I just like the taste."

In the dim golden light of the bar, Nomad's eyes look like the deepest part of the ocean. His mask looks even darker, almost black against the warmness of his skin, cheeks slightly flushed with the cold air and the heat of the bar.

He is beautiful, James thinks and surprises himself with the intensity of the thought. To cover, he takes a drink and swishes the scotch around, lets it sit on his tongue until the smoke warms up his nose.

Nomad watches him and his eyes get darker.

James swallows, feels the scotch lick down his throat and leave a deep trail behind. He leans forward. He's not drunk, obviously, but something about the night is making him bold. "Sometimes I feel like I know you," he confides. "Sometimes I feel like..." He trails off and Nomad just watches him with those eyes. "Sometimes I feel like you're a blonde," he finishes.

Nomad huffs, almost a chuckle. "You think that?"

James nods, lamplight making him bold. He reached over and tugs at the mask with his flesh hand. It's softer than he had expected, smooth like butter under his fingers. He tugs and it stays fast.

Reaching up, Nomad catches his hand, holds it gently. "We all have secrets," he says. He sounds desperately sad. "And there's some things are better left unknown."

James frees his thumb from the grip and draws it down to rest on the pad of Nomad's lower lip. "Is this a secret?" he says, keeps his voice soft. He feels like anything could break this moment.

Nomad's lips part, and warm breath blows over the side of his thumb. The other man leans into the touch, turning it into a caress. His eyes don't move from James as he lifts his hand to gently curl their fingers together. Then, he breathes, "We can't."

Startled, James pulls back but Nomad keeps his hand tight.

"I want to. God, James, I want to. You are..." He struggles, turns his face to brush his forehead on their joined fingers. "You are the most beautiful man I have..."

"But?" James presses. He almost feels hurt and the hurt surprises him. When did he begin wanting this man so desperately? Even when he hadn't seen his entire face?

"But. I have too many secrets. Too many things I can't tell you. It wouldn't be fair." Nomad's eyes drop, like he can't bear to have their gazes meet. He takes a deep breath like he's steeling himself.

James looks down at the smooth wood table between them. He thinks of all the secrets bubbling beneath his skin in all the places he can't reach. "I don't care about fair."

Nomad catches his other hand, holds both firmly. "There are so many things I want to say to you. I just can't right now. One day, I think I will. But I can't now."

 

 

 

* * *

 

James sets up a google alert for Steve Rogers. He can't resist. There's no shortage of sightings - Steve Rogers in Chile, Steve Rogers in Uganda, Steve Rogers in the Philippines. Sometimes there's blurry photos of him in his dark uniform (he's not Captain America anymore -there's no flag across his middle) with Sam Wilson next to him. James scans the background of the pictures often, looking for a dark blue mask and broad shoulders. He never finds him - and, yet, James finds himself still looking at the images of Steve Rogers, wondering about the man that has inspired such loyalty from Nomad.

Most of the articles also mention the awards offered by the FBI, the US Government, and a handful of other member nations for any information leading the capture and arrest of Steve Rogers. He tries not to look at the hotline numbers. Maybe, months ago, after he had first woken up and the world had been empty and meaningless, James would've been fine with providing the information. But, now, there's something deep and warm in his life and he can't give that up.

Even beyond that, as he reads the reports of Steve Rogers helping out of after natural disasters or evacuating civilians in war torn zones or dropping off international terrorists at police station steps, James is beginning to question the evilness of Steve Rogers's mission. Nomad is a good man, James has no doubt. He trusts him. Nomad wouldn't follow a terrorist - wouldn't follow someone who wasn't good to their core.

Sometimes he wonders if someday Nomad will ask him to come along - ask him to abandon his quiet job and his peaceful house and travel the globe on the wrong side of international law. He imagines a world where he opens his eyes in a new country every week - where he has no home but Nomad and no job but doing good where it is needed.

Late one night, after Halloween and the almost kiss, he sits at his desk, the only illumination in his office coming from the moon and his laptop screen, and thinks he would follow. If the options were between never seeing Nomad again and becoming an international fugitive, he would pack a bag and go. The knowledge scares him.


	4. Chapter 4

In mid-November when the trees are all almost bare and the scent of rain hangs heavy and there's ice slicking the gutters some mornings, James does end up bringing blankets to the homeless community that hang out under one of the nearby bridges.

He had gone to Salvation Army and the thrift store and the Army Surplus store and bought all the thick wool blankets and thick waterproof sleeping bags he could find. After work, on a cold evening, he'd hired a cab and gotten a massive stink eye as he loaded all the blankets into the trunk and directed the cabbie to the bridge.

"I'm not waiting around for you," the cabbie grouses when they're almost there. "And no one is going to pick you up from here either."

"I can walk home," James snaps back, regretting hiring the cabbie right away. He hadn't had much of a choice: the blankets and sleeping bags were too bulky to take in one trip and he didn't have time to make several trips if he was going to find Nomad in their usual spot later.

The cabbie drops him off at the bridge and dumps the stuff from his trunk with a huff.

It takes a few trips, but James manages to cart down all the stuff. There's about 20 people clustered there already and James knows the number will grow as the night edges on. He hands out what he brought, not wearing a mask. He does have on the tac jacket that Nomad brought for him, dark leather and body armor and shearling wool on the inside.

James is crossing over past the last of the group when he sees the kid.

He's dark-haired and skinny and wearing nothing but a black t-shirt, curled in on himself like he's trying to make himself smaller. His arms and legs are jittering and James can see goose bumps on the pale arms. His hair is greasy, long almost to his neck.

The sight strikes something in James and he's shrugging off the tac jacket before he can really think about it. "Hey," he says, keeping his distance but proffering the jacket. "This is for you."

For a second, he thinks the kid is going to refuse. But then, a lanky arm sticks out and a hand with bitten down nails wraps around the collar.

James lets it go and is pleased when the kid wraps it around his shoulders. He nods. "Good luck, kid," he says and then walks into the night.

He puts on the mask when he's almost to his usual area, sticking to the shadows and back roads as he slides along in the darkness.

Nomad won't be angry about the jacket - not when James tells him why. At a heart level, James sees the same stuff in Nomad that he's slowly finding in himself. The idea makes him warm and he picks up his pace. It's alright, he's decided, that the other man has secrets and parts of himself held back. James understands.

One probably doesn't get to Steve Rogers's inner circle without selling little bits of soul off like trading cards. But, when James looks in Nomad's eyes, he knows that the man inside is noble and decent and whatever he had to sell was well worth it. So, it's okay that James can't know everything. He knows what matters.

The night is still and heavy with the suggestion of rain. He's just in his long sleeved black shirt now and he's not shivering, but he can feel the damp air seep across the back of his neck and reach icy fingers down his spine.

He's only about a block from the rooftop where he always meets Nomad when he hears a scream and then the muffled report of gunfire. The sound echoes off the buildings and he knows it's only a block away so he takes off running.

It's one man with his hand shaking like a branch in a storm as he holds a big handgun on a frightened woman.

She's crying and shaking, purse lying at her feet and hair falling around her face. There's no blood though. Her voice is wrecked and shrill with fear and she's saying, "please, Daniel, please, please," over and over like a prayer.

He's a junkie. James can see the track marks on his arm and the sallowness in his cheeks. His eyes look wild and not all there, like he's seeing something beyond just a back street with yellow lighting and fog creeping up.

"Hey, pal," James says, keeping his hands away from his sides and trying to draw up his shoulders so he looks bigger. "Wanna put that gun down?"

The junkie jerks and the gun wavers briefly before going back to the woman. "Don't come any closer," he says. His breath is loud and fast like a steam engine. "Don't don't don't..." He trails off and shakes his head, jerking the hand not holding the gun back and forth.

"Okay, okay," James pitches his voice to soothing. "Can you just tell me what's wrong?"

In that moment, the stillness of the night is broken by a truck rumbling to life just on the other side of the alley. The junkie jerks at the noise and James sees his finger tighten on the trigger.

What would happen next plays out clearly in James's mind in the milliseconds as he watches the finger start to clench down. The bullet will go from the gun and straight into the chest of the woman crying on the ground. She won't get up again. She'll die in a puddle of blood on a dirty street because of drugs and cars and the awful ticking of the universe.

James throws himself forward, reaching for the gun just as the trigger completes the pull. He hears the shot and then feels the air go right out of his lungs. He hits the ground and the woman is screaming again. Sound goes wonky and his head is buzzing but nothing hurts.

There are noises above him, the sound of footsteps and fists but he can't tell how far away he is from the sounds. It could be miles and it could be inches. The woman stops screaming but then she's crying, steady and gasping sobs that echo in James's ears. But he can't get up. He can't move.

He opens his eyes and he can see the gray cement walls across from him and a puddle of rainwater. His mask is twisted just a little, partially blocking his sight out of one eye. There's a street light at the edge of the alley and a long shadow is cast across the ground, like someone very tall is standing just out of his line of sight.

It's starting to hurt now. Something is bubbling up and burning his insides and he feels cold.

I'll be okay, he tells himself. Bullet wounds heal fast. And, then, he thinks of Nomad waiting alone on the roof and he wishes and wishes that the other man was here.

The alley is quiet. The woman isn't crying anymore and there are no more footsteps. He can't tell how much time has passed. Seconds? Hours? James is eventually going to have to get up, stagger home. Maybe he can lay here until he heals. If he heals. If not...

Suddenly, there are warm hands on his shoulders, rolling him over, and he looks up and almost weeps because Nomad is here.

Blue eyes are wide in that dark blue mask and he looks pale in the streetlight. "James," he says. "Oh god." He touches James's face and his fingers feel so hot on his skin. "Oh god."

"It's not bad," James tells him. His voice is weirdly breathy and James doesn't think it should be this weak.

Nomad makes a choking noise. He's taking off his jacket and doing something around James's middle. Fabric pulls and tightens. "I didn't kill the guy who shot you," he says. "I thought you would like that. I wanted to."

James frowns. "Junkie kid," he says and can't manage anymore but he thinks Nomad will get what he's trying to say.

Nomad doesn't answer but his fingers pet James soothingly. "You're not wearing your jacket. The bullet went clean through," he says instead. "We need to get you to a hospital."

"No hospital. Healed from the last bullet hole fast." James tries to get his arms under himself. His elbow gives almost instantly and his head swims. "Just... Just get me home."

Nomad is silent and James realizes he's never told him where he lives - that they've always kept their lives outside the masks carefully segregated and silent.

He grabs Nomad's hand and clutches tight. There's little stars exploding at the corners of his vision when he jerks around the hole in his middle - but, he crazily thinks, Nomad's eyes still shine brighter. "I trust you," he breathes and means it down to his very soul. "My address is in my phone. Back pocket."

Nomad fumbles for a minute then his hand touches James's ass, sliding over the curve and then into his pocket.

James snorts and then groans. "Finally got you to cop a feel," he wheezes around the wave of pain. He feels punchy from the pain and the blood loss and Nomad's big, warm hands all over him. "Knew you'd come around."

Nomad frowns at him but James thinks his hand drags a bit more tenderly on the way out. "Okay," he murmurs. "Okay. You need to just relax. I'm gonna take care of you."

Cold is starting to creep up along his limbs and James thinks that's a bad sign. He shivers and then can't stop. Arms slide around him and he's suddenly airborne and his head is against a solid chest.

"If I can't take you to a hospital," Nomad says, so close to his ear that he can feel the shape of his breath, "then I'm calling a friend to look at you. I promise they'll be discreet."

James nods against the chest. The pain is fading now, slipping away on exhaustion and shock. He's never been this close to the other man before and there's something about the way Nomad smells that's grinding against his memory. "Were you in the army?" he asks, eyes closed as Nomad strides out of the alley.

"A very long time ago," Nomad says.

"I feel like we knew each other." It's a quiet confession, out of his mouth before he's finished his own train of thought. "Like you're a dream I've never stopped having." Present meshes with dreams and James thinks of a cold desert and Nomad carrying him across plains of snow to safety. It's indistinct and blurry - just the feeling of Nomad's chest against his side.

Something warm and gentle brushes his forehead. "I'm here," Nomad says. The words are so soft that they could be the edge of dreams right before sleep, untethered and unbothered by reality. "I'll always be here."

James falls into unconsciousness and dreams of big arms holding him even as a storm rages overhead.

He's aware of things, between the fragments of the dream, in snatches. He is in the dim back of a van with his head in Nomad's lap and a penlight in his eyes.

"Leave his mask on," Nomad tells someone, sternly.

There's more pulling and tugging around his middle and then a woman telling him to hold still.

Then he feels as if the entire world is moving and the sickness rises in his belly. He thinks he throws up. Or maybe he just wants to.

Nomad's hand, spanning the entire width of his forehead, strokes the hair at his temple gently. "I'm right here," he says in a low soothing stream, "I'm not leaving you. You are safe."

He is cradled against a big chest again and a door slams. There's cold night air and something in his gut is hurting, but he thinks he's never felt more protected.

The next time he opens his eyes, there's light coming through his bedroom window and he's just wearing his underwear. There's a thick wrapping of gauze around his middle. He's disoriented for a moment and then remembers all at once in a rush. His hand flies up to his face. When he feels the cheap polyester of his mask beneath his fingers, he relaxes. It's not a very good disguise, he knows. But it's become a security blanket in recent months.

Wooziness clings to his head but when he sits up, his abdomen only pulls a little. He's clean; all the blood and dirt from that alley has been scrubbed away and he can faintly smell soap. Someone has washed his hair and around his mask and pulled a blanket up to his neck and made sure the pillows were fluffed behind his head. There's a glass of water on the bedside table and one of the chairs from his kitchen table is pulled up so someone could sit just feet away, close enough to touch, and monitor him all night.

Just above the hum of the central heater, he can hear dishes and pots clattering through the open door of his bedroom and he smiles. Nomad.

Carefully, he pushes back the blankets. The bandages around his middle are spotless, no bleeding. He swings his legs around and keeps his breathing shallow so he's not straining his middle.

His robe is draped over the foot of the bed and he stands to put it on. His middle aches but he can manage a shuffle from the bedroom to the bathroom. He pisses like a racehorse and then washes his hands, staring in the mirror. He's pale under the dark mask, eyes rimmed in red and washed out. He brushes his teeth just to get the fuzz off, takes his morning regimen of pills, and then hobbles into the living room.

In the kitchen, Nomad has his back to him and he's stirring something over the stove - oatmeal, by the slightly nutty smell. He's wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans, arms bare. The cowl he always wears is still on, but it ends high on his neck and James can see the slope of his shoulders beneath the collar of the t-shirt. There's just the tiniest bit of blonde fringe tufting out the bottom of the cowl and James thinks this is the most he's ever seen of him.

"Hey," he says, softly as not to startle.

Nomad turns and smiles. There's only the faintest hint of stress around his mouth and his eyes are soft - James can almost pretend that he's waking up to find his lover making him breakfast. "Good to see you're feeling better. I'm making breakfast," he says, waving the spoon he's been stirring the oatmeal with.

James makes it over to the table and lowers himself down with barely a wince. "Thank you for taking care of me last night. And for..." he gestures to his mask.

"I would never betray you, James." His voice is serious. Nomad sets of bowl of oatmeal down with a spoon and sits down across from him with his own. On the one in front of James, there's a good amount of brown sugar on top and a splash of milk. Just how James likes it.

But before James can follow that line of thought, Nomad leans across the table. "I have a question though. Why weren't you wearing the jacket? And why don't you carry a weapon?" He sounds tired, strung tight by fear.

James blows on the oatmeal to avoid answering for a second. Then, quietly, "there was a homeless kid. He needed the jacket more than me. And you know I don't like killing people."

"But what if they're trying to kill you?" Nomad's voice goes rough on the end of the question, like this is an old, weary fear that has kept him up many nights.

James shrugs. "As we've seen, I'm hard to kill."

Nomad's big hand clenches to a fist and James watches it. "If I hadn't been there..."

"But you were."

"If I hadn't been there, that junkie could've shot you again. And shot the girl too. You're not invincible - you can still die. You can still bleed out." Nomad sounds exhausted and scared, pulled tight to the end of his abilities. He reaches up and scrubs at his mask. "Damn it. I don't want to show up a second too late and find you dead."

"I don't like guns," James blurts out. "I just. I don't know why. Sometimes I look at them, and I feel something sour in my belly like a nightmare and it feels like there's blood all over my hands. Sometimes I dream and firing a gun is the easiest thing in the world. Like breathing. And I don't want to know why. I don't want to go down that path. I don't want to know why I dream of pulling triggers and ending lives and it's so easy."

Nomad presses his lips together and closes his eyes. He looks wrecked. "I didn't," he clears his throat. "I didn't know," he says like he's asking for absolution.

"How could you?" James puts his face in his hands. "I'm so fucked up," he murmurs. "My brain is like a minefield. I swear. It's like an empty field with all these thorns and rocks and quicksand and rattlesnakes and grenades and sometimes everything is fine and sometimes things just hit me and..."

Long fingers close over his and Nomad is standing just above him, pulling James's head into his stomach and stroking his hair. "You're the best man I know," is all he says. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

James stands up and turns in his embrace so they're face to face and he can see the hints of green in Nomad's blue eyes. "Don't be sorry," he says, puts both hands on either side of his face and kisses him, hard.

Nomad's mouth freezes under his and then he makes a tiny sound like a gasp or a sob and he's kissing back, opening easily under James. He tastes of orange juice and when James sucks his lower lip, he moans headily.

James lets his hands slide back, caressing over the cowl and down the strong neck, and he feels Nomad's hands settle on the belt of the robe, not tugging, just holding James close, like this is a gift.

When they break apart, Nomad pulls back and looks at him for a long moment, like he's searching for something. Then he sighs and leans to rest his forehead against James's. He closes his eyes. "Your oatmeal is getting cold," he says and James can hear the tease in his voice.

"Stay," James says back, even though he knows it's unfair. "Stay here. With me."

But Nomad is already shaking his head. "I would. But I can't. I can't."

James wraps his fingers in the neck of his t-shirt, pulls so they're flush together. "You've saved me," he says, dropping his head to Nomad's shoulder.

"You saved yourself," Nomad whispers back. "Some day..."

"Some day when you're not trying to change the world with Steve Rogers?"

Nomad tenses under his arms. He's quiet for a long time; so long that James is about to pull away. "I'm sorry," he finally says. "Some day this will all be over."

James tries to believe him.

 

* * *

 

"Happy holidays," Nomad says, one week before Christmas, and he hands over a package wrapped in newspaper with a simple green bow tied around it.

James takes it and shakes it lightly. "You didn't have to." He can't remember ever getting a gift from anyone.

Nomad smiles. "Open it."

They're sitting on some rocks in a quiet park. It's freezing so no one is around. The occasional car drives by on the road - but they're in too deep to be seen. Between the shrubs on the other side, James can just see the colorful flicker of Christmas lights in the nearby neighborhood. It's peaceful.

James pulls the ribbon and peels back the paper. Black leather spills out and he smiles. "Thank you," he says.

"This one is even better," Nomad tells him. "And there's something else."

Underneath the jacket, James pulls out a tiny slender black bar, about eight inches long. It has a leather handgrip and the other side narrows to a blunt tip.

James quirks an eyebrow and Nomad goes red.

"Oh god. It's not what you think." He grabs it from James and holds it up. "It's a Bite. You push this button and," he demonstrates and the entire top glows blue. He touches it to a nearby tree and a quick electrical snap goes through the air. Nomad pulls it back and pushes a button on the other side. Blue electricity arcs out and sizzles against the ground about 10 feet away. "It won't kill anyone - but it'll knock someone out for a good 10 minutes."

James takes the Bite and turns it over in his hands. He feels warm despite the cold air. "I don't," he clears his throat. "I don't know what to say."

Nomad leans across the space and kisses him. "Say you'll use it. Say you'll be safe."

"I'll be safe," James promises.

 

* * *

 

James spends the next week trying to figure out what to get Nomad for the holidays.

After work, he walks past brightly lit shops and stares in at flashy gadgets and soft scarves and fancy phones and thinks about the way Nomad smiles. He thinks about what would make Nomad's face light up. Nothing seems right.

In a big department store, a nice woman shows him a collection of leather jackets, all butter soft and carefully fitted.

"You're looking for a brother..." she probes.

"Boyfriend," James replies, even though they've never talked about it. He smiles down at the brown leather jacket he's holding.

The woman smiles prettily. "I think he would very much like that one."

"I'll think about it."

He ends up in a weird antique store and stares at scratched mirrors and tiny little doo-dads. In the display case at the front, there's a collection of necklaces and bracelets and cufflinks and watches.

Almost idly, he scans the signs and then his gaze catches on a World War I era watch. It's simple, a sturdy brown leather strap and a silver rim around a black watch face. It's expensive. But something about it...

He asks to see it, holds it carefully between his fingers and wonders at how familiar it feels.

"There's an inscription on the back," the clerk says and he turns it over.

"To my dearest," says faded, but carefully etched lettering.

It's perfect.

They put it in a sleek black box for him and he doesn't pay attention to the amount that comes up on the cash register, just hands over his card.

On Christmas Eve, he finds Nomad on the rooftops and slides the box into his hands. "Happy holidays," he says.

When long fingers pluck at the tape holding the edges of the box together, James finds he's nervous. Butterflies in the stomach. He's wearing the jacket from Nomad and the Bite is tucked in its holster attached to his belt. The gifts are so practical and this gift...

Nomad's breath hitches, a wisp of a thing above the late night city noise. His hand runs along the leather band, smoothing his thumb over the curve of the leather. "My father had a watch like this," he says, sounding almost strangled. "I wore it when I was a kid until..." He stops. "How...?"

"It seemed to fit." James hesitates. "Turn it over."

Nomad does and this time his fingers tremble a little when he rubs a thumb over the words. "Thank you, James." His voice is hushed, reverent over a talisman. He looks up and James is hurt all over again by the blueness of his eyes.

James stuffs his hands in his pockets. "I know it hasn't been that long that we've known each other but..."

He doesn't finish. Nomad surges forward and presses their lips together, one hand cupping his face and the other still holding the watch.

And James thinks he hears bells somewhere.

 

* * *

 

They spend New Year’s Eve together in James's home. There are too many people out, too great a risk of being seen.

The TV shows a countdown and James orders Thai. They sit on the sofa in their masks and eat with chopsticks and grin at each other over their cartons.

"Favorite color," James says.

"Blue. Yours?"

"Black." James dangles pad thai over his mouth and pulls in the thin noodles with his tongue. "Favorite fruit?"

"Oranges."

"Blueberries."

Nomad laughs. "Is this a hint for blueberry pancakes?"

James leans back against him. "How do you travel around when you're not hanging out with me?"

"I have a motorcycle," Nomad says like it's no big deal.

James sits up and gives him an incredulous look. "And you've never told me this? Never shown me?" He's already picturing strong thighs on a leather seat and clutching onto a narrow waist as the wind blows against his face. They'd be so free. No responsibilities. No looming pressure or threats. Together.

Two spots of color appear below the edges of the mask. "I'll show you," Nomad says and his voice is husky.

They stay up until dawn and then curl in James's bed together, fingers touching.

"I miss you," Nomad murmurs as the gray sunlight washes the room. He seems older and sadder.

"I'm right here," James says. He grips Nomad's hands in his. "I'm right here."


	5. Chapter 5

When James gets a knock on the door two weeks later, he slides the Bite into his pocket before he goes to the door.

It's bitterly cold, even for the middle of January, and gushing rain, sheets of water pounding against his windows. No one should be out in weather like this.

But, when he opens the door, Nomad is slumped against the side of his porch. He's gray and pale under his mask and his eyes are half closed. "I'm sorry," he rasps, something thick and worrying in his throat. "I didn't have... I wanted to see you." Then he pitches like he's going to fall forward.

James lunges, gets him under the arms and holds him up against his chest. "What the hell," he says as he's dragging the heavier man inside. "What the hell happened?" He kicks the door closed with his foot.

He realizes, as he's attempting to support Nomad over to the sofa, that he is not wearing his mask. Nomad can see his face. For a moment, he feels dreadfully exposed and then forgets as soon as Nomad groans against him. He'll worry about the mask later.

"There was an ambush," Nomad says. "Just outside the city. They stuck me with something and I..." His words cut off and he lunges for the white kitchen trashcan just in time. He heaves and vomits and there's something bright red mixed in with the bile. He spits, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and it comes away bloody. "They said it was poison and then they just left me there."

A frisson of panic hits James hard. "You need to go to a hospital," he says. He knows Nomad is sort of like him - but if they were after Nomad specifically, it's probably specially designed and Nomad is already feeling the effects. They need to...

Nomad shakes his head firmly, hands leaning on his knees still over the trash can. "Can't do that. You know why."

"I've never seen you on the news," James says desperately. "Maybe they won't recognize..." He's already reaching for his cellphone.

Nomad reaches up and unclips the chin strap on his ever-present cowl and shucks it off, letting it hit the floor almost carelessly. He's even paler without the mask, eyes dark rimmed and almost fever bright in his white face.

James wants to be angry when he looks into blue eyes set into a painfully familiar face. He thinks he knew it all along. He feels off balance for a second, like he's looking into a funhouse mirror and the entire world is warped and stretched - like it was getting ready to snap back into place like a taut rubber band. His head pounds once and stars burst against his eyes and he swallows hard. "Well," he says faintly, "I guess they will recognize you."

Steve Rogers is trembling all over and he can't seem to stand up all the way straight - but he's trying desperately. "James," he says. "I'll leave. I'm sorry. I never meant to tell you like this. I just wanted to see you. I didn't..." He chokes and starts coughing and more blood comes up, splattering his hand.

When James grabs him again, Steve feels hot to the touch and sweaty. "We need to talk about this," James says. "But I'm also not going to have you die in the middle of a rain storm." Lightning flashes outside his window as if to prove his point.

Some part of James is screaming that he should be more concerned about having a member of the Most Wanted list in his home. This man is armed and dangerous - hell, from what James has seen, he doesn't need weapons to do some serious damage. And, beyond his own personal safety, James could be charged with abetting a terrorist. But that part of him falls silent when faced with the reality of Steve Rogers standing before him, pasty and shaky and staring at James like he's everything.

This is Nomad. This is the man that makes his heart pound and fills his stomach with warmth. Everything else they can work out.

Steve clutches at him, fingers wrapping around his t-shirt. "I want you to know I love you, okay." His blue eyes are slipping in and out of focus and he shakes his head like there's some fog settling over him. "I love you. I just needed to tell you."

The cold dread is back. Steve thinks that something is terribly wrong - and if Steve thinks that, it's probably true. James gets himself under Steve's arm, propping him up. "We're laying you down. You don't get to make any deathbed confessions."

It's slow progress. Steve is trying to help but his knees start going out halfway there and then it's a struggle for him to stay on his feet. On TV, he'd always seemed so untouchable and now he clings to James like he's afraid. His breathing is turning raspy and he's shaking so hard his teeth are chattering.

He gets Steve down on the bed and flicks on the bedside lamp. The yellow light does nothing for Steve's color - if anything, it makes him look worse. This is a situation where James feels woefully out of his depth. When he rests a hand on Steve's forehead, he can feel the skin burning up but Steve is still shivering.

"Is there someone I can call?" he asks. There has to be someone, right? This is Steve Rogers. He has friends. He has a team. He's important. Steve Rogers matters. Steve isn't going to die in James's living room from some goddamn poison.

Steve licks his lips and his eyes crack open. "Sam's in Chicago." The words are partially slurred and hoarse. "Phone's in my jacket."

"Why are you out here all alone, huh?" James asks, almost rhetorically.

"Like seeing you." Steve's looking at him with such fondness that it hurts James's chest. Nomad's blurry, not all the way there, but the way his eyes hold James's gaze still feels like a caress. "Miss you."

Something is cracking open deep inside. Some terrible understanding is shoving it's its way forward and James feels almost breathless with it. He pushes it aside and makes the call.

"This better be good, Steve," a deep voice says.

James clears his throat. "I'm sorry. I'm calling for Steve? He's in Washington D.C. and he says some guys jumped him and gave him some sort of toxin. He's not doing too good."

There's a long pause and then Sam says, "is Is this James?"

His mouth is dry. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm James."

"Is he conscious?"

James looks at the bed; Steve's eyes are half closed and he's breathing roughly, fists clenching the bedspread. "He wants to talk to you," he whispers.

Steve gestures for the phone. "Sam?" he asks when James holds the receiver up. "I know. I'm sorry. I didn't..." He trails off. Then nods. "Okay. Thank you." He leans away.

"James?" Sam says. "Okay. I'm sending a team to help you out. It'll be okay. Just keep him calm and quiet and call me back right away if his condition changes. Got that?"

"Yeah. Yes. I got that."

Sam is quiet for a second. "Are you gonna be okay?" he asks and he sounds like the words were dragged out.

James rubs Steve's arms. "We'll make it. But come fast."

"Will do."

When he hangs up, James doesn't waste a second before he gets on the bed with Steve. Briefly, he lifts the other man and slides beneath him as he sits against the headboard. He leans Steve back against his chest, wraps an arm around Steve's broad shoulders, and hopes the elevation will help his breathing. His heart is aching, fear and love and loss all warring together as the pieces fall into place for the first time in months.

Steve is shaking all over now and gasping between gritted teeth, a harsh sound even with the rain pounding against the roof. There are blood flecks on the edges of his mouth. "It'll be okay," he tells James earnestly. "You'll be okay." The words end in a sigh like this is a wish. "They'll protect you."

James presses a kiss to the side of his head. Some deep, painful knowledge is battering against the inside of his skull like a unceasing drum. "I'm him, aren't I?"

In his arms, Steve goes still a moment and then shakes harder.

"I'm Bucky." The words come out more like a statement and less like the question James had meant it as.

The noise Steve makes sounds like a sob, a gut-wrenching choke of pain that hurts James's throat just to hear it. Steve nods. "Do you remember?" he slurs, something old and broken in his tone.

He wants to be able to say yes. James combs at his memory for a hint and there's nothing. There's just the way he thinks he knew Steve before he even met him - he had been searching for Steve since he woke up alone in a hospital. There's the way Steve feels in his arms, like belonging. His name, waking up with no memory, the missing arm. He remembers the Hydra agent in the warehouse, staring at him with recognition. The way the man had said, "Soldat?" like James was supposed to reply.

All of the pieces are colliding together in his head. And he He feels a little sick but there's no time for that because Steve is staring up at him, so hopeful and scared, and he's pale and shaky and James has this awful, swooping sensation that Steve is going to die here on this bed. And James is going to be able to do nothing but hold him and watch.

"Do you remember?" Steve asks again, now, as he shivers and pants.

So James fudges a little. He may not remember being Bucky, but he knows this love is deep and true and goes straight to the core of whichever man he is. And Steve. Steve deserves this.

"I'm here, Steve," he says. His fingers card against Steve's scalp, comforting as best he can. "I'm right here. I won't leave you again."

Steve sobs and it sounds like a gasp of such pure relief. "I'm sorry." He has to stop for a cough and it jerks his whole body, blood splattering against the hand that he brings up to cover his mouth. By the time he's done, Steve's teeth are chattering hard and he's blinking hard like he's having trouble focusing. "I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to stay away." His hands come up and cling to James's arms.

"It's okay," James soothes. "I understand. Just rest, alright? Help will be here soon."

Steve sighs and his eyes are sliding shut now. "They told me," he confides in that weak, breathy slur. "That it was poison. That it would kill me."

James sucks in a breath. "What the hell?" he snaps. "Steve..."

The weak fingers wrapped around his arm squeeze. "I just wanted to see you. Even if you didn't remember me. If this was it. But this is more..."

A familiar and unknown anger surges up. "Fuck, Steve. You don't get to do this. You don't get to give up. This isn't a fucking ending."

I haven't remembered you yet, he wants to say. You can't die because there's so much about you I don't know but I want to. You can't die because if you die before I remember you, I will die too. I will never forgive myself.

He holds Steve tight, arms wrapped around him like an iron band. "Stay with me," he says.

Steve is limp against him, eyes closed and face sweaty and creased like he's in pain. "Always. ‘Til the end of the line."

"That's a cheesy line, Rogers," James says, resting his cheek on the crown of Steve's head.

"You started it," Steve murmurs back and then his fingers twitch, followed by full body shakes that can only be a seizure.

James curses and his mind goes blank, focused on keeping Steve on the bed and his limbs from flailing. It's over fast but Steve doesn't open his eyes and James feels his lungs go tight and his eyes are burning. He holds Steve tight, rocking ever so slightly to comfort himself more than Steve.

That's when he hears his front door bang open, followed by a rush of wind and rain.

Hydra is his first thought - come to finish the job when Steve is down and weak and James is unarmed and and...

"James?" It's S'Yan from the embassy and three other men James doesn't recognize. They're all wearing the dark clothes of Wakanda, though, and they're toting a gurney between them. One of the men comes close, carrying a black medical bag, and James thinks he might recognize him as the on-call doctor.

More things are falling into place.

"You're here to help him?" he asks just a little sharply. He is not loosening his grip just yet. After all, it's been all over the news that Steve Rogers's best friend was executed by the Wakandan king. For all appearances, Steve Rogers and Wakanda have never been on the same side. Of course, James is James Barnes so James Barnes clearly wasn't executed - there's a lot of things going on that James doesn't yet understand.

"We are," the doctor says. He comes close and sits on the edge of the bed. His face and voice are kind and his hands touch Steve gently. "May I?"

James is reluctant to slide away from Steve but he does, settling Steve down gently on the pillows. He brushes a hand over the side of his face before he moves away. Two of the other men come close to the bed, pulling on white gloves. James steps closer to the familiar presence of S'Yan. He is next to the other man, still standing in the doorway with the gurney between them. The familiar face comforts James a little - but he still doesn't take his eyes off of Steve and the doctor.

S'Yan looks at him kindly. "Sam Wilson called us," he says. "We will do everything we can to save him."

"You're working with him?" James swallows.

"A great many people," S'Yan says, "in my country look up to the Captain." Something on his wrist beeps and he looks down. "Doctor, we need to move. Potential hostiles are inbound."

The doctor looks up and James feels his stomach drop at how grave his face is. "We don't have the means to treat him at the embassy. Tell them to get the jet ready."

"Will he be alright?" James speaks over the noises of them wrapping Steve in a blanket and swinging him onto the gurney. "Where are you taking him?"

S'Yan takes his arm gently. "Do you want to grab a change of clothes before we leave? You will not be coming back here."

The finality of the page closing on the last few months of his life hits James all at once. He's not James the Security Guard or even James the Weaponless Vigilante. He's James Buchanan Barnes. Maybe he should feel distraught over the upending of everything he had known - but instead, something hot is burning in his gut and he feels like he's finally going home. Some deep and missing part of himself is slotting into place.

He nods. "Let me grab a couple things."

"Hurry."

In the end, he takes a handful of dark jeans and sweatshirts, all of his medications, and the tac jacket from Steve. The Bite stays in his pocket. At the last moment, he goes to his bedroom and takes the portrait of Brooklyn at sunset from the wall and removes the frame. The canvas itself is only just a little bigger than a piece of paper so it fits in his duffle. He doesn't examine why he takes it - but he does look at the memories of Brooklyn spread lovingly around his home before he leaves, placed there by a caring hand that had just wanted him to be happy.

He locks the door behind him and runs after Steve.

Out front, they're loading his gurney into a sleek, dark van that has the bulky look of bulletproof armor. S'Yan is driving and the other, thus far silent, man sits in the front holding one of the biggest guns that James ever remembers seeing.

They don't go the embassy. James sits in the back and holds Steve's hand and tries to stay out of the way of the doctors and their shiny fancy equipment as S'Yan speeds down the road to Reagan airport. Rain is pounding on the roof of the van and the wind buffets the side, making it away across the road.

"The flight crew is saying that the control tower isn't allowing anything to take off in this weather," S'Yan reports.

"Tell them to use the king's special clearance," the doctor says back. "Captain Rogers does not have time to spare."

"Can we fly in this?" James asks as a clap of thunder seems to shake the whole van.

S'Yan spares him a glance over his shoulder that almost seems annoyed. "Our jets and our crew are the best in the world. We will get out of the storm safely."

James nods once and then looks back to where Steve is unconscious against the gurney, raspy breaths sounding thick and fast. His eyelashes are dark against his clammy face and his fingers are trembling against James's. He doesn't look good.

At Reagan, S'Yan flashes some credentials at the guard gate and they're allowed to drive right onto the tarmac. It's mostly dark and empty, planes moored against the terminal like abandoned ships. There's one plane waiting on one of the smaller runways. It's dark and sleek and reminds James of the military quinjets he sees on TV.

"Is that our ride?" he asks.

The van skids to a halt next to it and the back of the cargo bay starts lowering.

"Yes." S'Yan gets out and the rain is plastered against his clothes instantly. "We'll have to move fast. A team of Hydra agents just hit your house. They'll figure out where we've gone soon enough."

The doctors cover Steve with some sort of slick, waterproof cover and then they're flinging open the doors and charging into the storm and up the ramp of the jet.

Inside, the jet is surprisingly spacious and warm, clean lines and creams make the place feel inviting even as the rain drums against the roof. James stows his bag in a quick latch compartment and shakes water out of his hair.

"We still don't have permission to take off," the pilot says, stepping out from the cockpit. "The control tower keeps delaying."

S'Yan's face darkens. "Something is wrong. They should've taken the clearance." He strides off.

"Bucky..."

The whispered name comes to James like a shout. Steve's been moved to what looks like a small medical bay. He's on a narrow white bed and there are glossy screens above him. And his his eyes are cracked open and he's staring at James like he's everything.

James feels something sick and broken surge up because he doesn't remember Bucky. "I'm here," he says, anyway. He crosses over and takes Steve's hand, squeezes warmly. "I'm here, Steve."

Steve looks up at him and his mouth moves soundlessly for a moment before his eyes slide closed again. His breathing seems a bit easier.

The entire jet jerks and S'Yan comes barreling back. "Everyone, strap in. Control tower was stalling and now we got a couple tanks on us. We need to get up fast."

There's a bucket seat at one side of the alcove and James is shoved to it, fingers pulling away from Steve's. He fastens his own seatbelt as the doctors harness Steve to the bed and then sit themselves. The jet jerks again and lightning snaps outside the window.

James can hear the whine of engines and then a thump.

"Stand down," a booming loudspeaker says outside. "Turn off your engines and surrender."

The humming engines get louder and then the jet is airborne, shooting straight up into the air with a whoosh that makes James's stomach drop.

He hears a sharp boom that sounds like a cannon and then the inertia drives him back in his seat as the thrusters go on. The entire jet is juddering hard between the wind and the storm and the quick acceleration and he feels a little sick, flesh hand trembling where he's gripping his jeans.

All of the doctors look incredibly calm and steady though. One is holding an oxygen mask to Steve's face and his hands are steady as a rock. Steve's eyes are still shut and a thin sheen of sweat is on his forehead.

"Are we clear?" another doctor asks toward the cockpit.

"Stay buckled in until we clear U.S. airspace," S'Yan says back. "We may have to do some evasive maneuvers."

The jet jerks again but James can't take his eyes from Steve. His hand is flopping with the jerking plane and he looks incredibly small. James studies the curve of his temple, how his blonde hair is soft against his skull - all of the things he didn't see while they sat together on the roofs of D.C. under the stars.

I can't lose him, he thinks as the plane rumbles beneath him. The whirled feeling hits him again - the sensation of having two lives shoved inside the short space of months since he woke up from the coma. Had there even been a coma? Or had that been another story in order to hold the facade?

There's a beeping noise and one of the doctors gets up. "We're clear," he says. "The American fighters will not pursue us any further."

"How is he?" James asks, undoing his own safety belt and leaning close.

The doctor is gently touching Steve's stomach. His eyebrows are knit together. "We'll know more once we can run tests. But we are doing all we can for him."

"Where are we going?" James asks over the wind.

S'Yan turns and he smiles briefly. "Wakanda. Sam is going to meet us as soon as he can. And the others."

 

* * *

 

The Black Widow is waiting for them on the airfield in Wakanda and James, just for a second, finds himself a bit star struck - a quick distraction from the hell of the flight and the uncertainty of the future.

On the flight over, Steve had been alternately freezing and burning, cycling between extremes with alarming intensity. He'd seized twice more and vomited up more blood. Most of the time, he'd been unconscious. But he had been rarely lucid even when his eyes were open. He'd called for Bucky and James could do nothing but hold his hand and try to reassure him and pray the flight would go faster.

Now, the infamous Black Widow barely looks at James though, her hands immediately reaching for Steve. "What's wrong with him?" she asks, harsh. Her hand slides over Steve's forehead, familiar in a way that makes James feel jealousy for a blinding second.

"Poison, we believe," one of the doctors says.

On the gurney, Steve's half conscious and his head rolls a little. "Nat," he breathes, "Bucky's here. He came. He remembers." He coughs at the end, something dark and red on his mouth.

She smiles gently, smoothing a hand across his hair. "Just rest, Steve, okay? We're gonna get you better."

Steve plucks at her wrist. Each inhale sounds unsteady and raspy and James can see that the fever is surging again. "You have to protect him," he tells. "They will..."

"I know. You'll both be safe here. Now hush and let them take care of you."

The gurney moves toward the ambulance and James starts to follow but she grabs his arm, fingers like a steel clamp. He meets her gaze steadily.

"You don't remember, do you?"

He hesitates, starts once and then stops. She's not someone to lie to, he can tell that already. And she cares about Steve. "I don't know what I remember," he says. "Nothing specific. But I know he's not lying about who I am."

She nods. "We need to let the doctors work. His Majesty is already on the phone with Washington about the little stunt with the jet. There's a lot you need to be brought up to speed on."

"I want to stay with Steve." Maybe he sounds a bit petulant but he doesn't care. "I may not remember everything but you can't keep me from him." Belatedly, it occurs to him that Steve may not have been open about their relationship but Black Widow doesn't seem surprised.

"They'll call us as soon as he's settled and I'll take you down there myself." She moves closer and smiles like she's trying to get him to trust her. "They'll save him," she says. "It'll be okay."

James stares back. "Don't make promises you can't keep," he says, voice low and dark. And then, when she quirks an eyebrow, he adds, "ma'am."

She doesn't smile now. "Call me Natasha. This will be easier if we're all on a first name basis. Now, let's go. The king is expecting us."

He follows her. "Didn't the king of Wakanda have me executed?" He's pushing at her, wanting to see how much she'll give him.

One slim eyebrow arches at him. "Rumors of your death were greatly exaggerated. Don't believe everything you see on the news."

Wakanda is beautiful. Natasha drives and James finds himself staring in awe at waterfalls and lush trees - and then, at a silver city rising out of the jungle like a mirage. There is glass and sloping, curved lines. Everything seems to catch and reflect light and water falls between buildings, swirling down to wide pools that line the well-manicured road.

From his previous time in Wakanda, right after waking up from the coma, James only remembers the view out his window: blue sky and the distant green smudge of mountains. He'd been taken at night to the airport for the flight to D.C. and he remembers seeing dark green trees and millions of stars as he boarded the plane. But he'd never seen the city in full daylight, gleaming and beautiful like something out of a fairytale.

"The hospital is attached to the palace," Natasha tells him as they pull up to a white-spiraled building that almost seems to be built into a cliff. "It's the best in the world."

There's a girl waiting for them at the top of the steps, long brown hair blowing just a little in the breeze as they walk up to her. She's staring at James and suddenly he feels pulled open and raw. It must be a trick of the light but he swears he sees a dash of red flicker across her pale eyes.

"This is Wanda," Natasha says like she's waiting for something.

Wanda's gaze doesn't waver and James feels something tickle at his skull. Then, finally after a long pause, "he is here because he loves Steve. But all the blocks are still in place. I cannot see beneath them." Her accent is soft and delicate and James can't place it.

Something about her voice is familiar though, like an echo. She's the Scarlet Witch, he realizes. James Buchanan Barnes hangs out with dangerous people. After all, James Buchanan Barnes, by all reports, is a dangerous person himself.

For the first time, he realizes that James Buchanan Barnes isn't just the man that Steve stares at like he hung the sun and the moon. James Buchanan Barnes was a terrorist who murdered dozens and bombed the UN and was betrayed by his country. The realization takes his breath away for a moment.

Was he a man who could do all of that? Or had everyone been that wrong?

The conference room they meet the king in is long with a solid oak table and wide windows that overlook what seems like a never-ending jungle. The glass curves outward, so standing right next to it, James feels like he's about to plummet into the dark trees.

James has seen picture of King T'Challa. There's one that hangs in the lobby of the embassy of in D.C. and he's gazed at it often enough. In person, the king seems younger and sadder and nobler. James has to fight off the urge to salute when he enters. He bows instead, low at the hips, casting his gaze to the floor.

"Be seated," the king says, and then. "It is good to see you again, Sergeant Barnes."

James sits and looks at his hands. "I'm sure they told you, Your Highness, I don't actually remember anything."

"No, I don't suppose you would." The king cocks his head. "A great many people worked very hard to ensure you would not." An aide places a slim hard drive before him and the king pushes it toward James. "Before all of this, you made a recording for yourself, explaining why the decision was made, for such a time as this. I have not watched it - but I believe it will provide the answers you seek."

James takes the hard drive and stares down at it. "Thank you," he says and thinks of the slim package on his life that his therapist had given him. Now there was a whole hard drive.

"But, now, there are other things to discuss." The king gestures to Natasha.

She leans forward. "Two days ago, Helmut Zemo escaped from the supermax prison in Canada where he was being held. We didn't find out until a few hours ago. Based on the timing, we believe he probably directly orchestrated Steve's ambush."

"Who's Helmut Zemo?" James asks, wracking his memory.

"He was the man that bombed the UN two years ago," Wanda says, eyes not wavering. "The terrorist attack you were accused of."

"The government purposely agreed to keep his involvement quiet. It was too messy of a story - not after the very public manhunt they instigated for you." Natasha passed over a file.

James flips back the cover and stares down at the benign looking man in a gray jumpsuit.

"We think he was working alone," Natasha continues. "We think he figured out you weren't dead and wanted to draw you out. And he figured using Hydra to hit Steve was the fastest way to do that."

"Why would he want me?"

"James Buchanan Barnes," Wanda says, "was a part of a Hydra program called the Winter Soldier Initiative. The goal was to create super soldiers using a version of the Project Rebirth serum. You were programmed as a soldier - once someone had the right words, you would do anything they said. We think he wanted to finish the job he started before he was arrested."

"Destroying the Avengers," the king says quietly.

"Our priority has to be getting him back into custody and figuring out who he's been working with in Hydra. We don't know what his end game is and if James is out of his reach, he might get desperate." Natasha frowns. "Plus, getting Steve better."

They disband shortly after that. The king has more conference calls to get on and James wants to be with Steve. Natasha gives him a laptop and he finds his way down to the hospital. They're still running tests but they let him sit in Steve's room.

Sam Wilson is there when he arrives, leaned over the bed with his hands clasped like he's in prayer. When James comes in, he looks up and his eyes are shot through with red. "Hey," he says. "I'm Sam Wilson. We met at the warehouse?"

James nods. "I remember. You're friends with Steve." All over of the news, whenever Steve Rogers was mentioned, Sam Wilson wasn't far behind. Steve's partner in crime. James feels a thick surge of jealousy, even though he knows it's unfair.

Sam Wilson tucks his hands in his pockets. "He was awake a few minutes ago, asking for you." His eyes narrow. "He seems to think that you remember everything. But from what Wanda and Nat have told me, that's not quite true."

James looks down.

Steve looks like shit, even unconscious. He has an oxygen mask over his face and he's pale and sweaty, trembling all over.

"He was," James clears his throat. "I thought he was dying. At the house. Right there. I wanted to comfort him. And it... I am James Barnes. I know that. I feel it. I just don't have all the memories to go with it."

Sam Wilson frowns. "You'll need to tell him. Steve'll know eventually. It'll only be worse if you keep lying to him."

"I don't want to hurt him," James whispers.

"Buddy," Sam Wilson says. "He's over the moon just to have you alive. If you really love him, you'll be honest with him." He leans over then, presses a quick kiss to Steve's forehead. "Hang in there," he murmurs and then he steps back.

Halfway out the door, Sam Wilson turns back. "He's the best man I know," he says. "We'll get him through this. He deserves a happy ending." And then he's gone.

Steve's breathing is raspy in the quiet.

James squeezes his shoulder. "Hey, pal," he says. "You got to get better, okay? You're the only thing that makes any sense to me."

There's no response.

He pulls a chair up to the edge of the bed and opens the laptop. The drive slides in with a little beep. There's a word document and a movie file. He opens the movie first.

His own face, longer hair and unshaven, looks back at him. He looks tired and a little lost. The room he's sitting is plain and he's wearing all white.

"I guess," the James from the past says, "if you're watching this, it means that somehow you found your way back here. And you're probably wondering why this all happened. First off, this was my call. It wasn't Steve or Wanda. This was my choice. They're not telling me the specifics of what the plan is for after. Because that's not the way this works. But I trust them."

He stops and looks down at his hands. "Hydra implanted trigger words in my, well our, head. Just a few words and snap," he clicked his fingers, "I turn into my own worst nightmare. I can't live like that. The docs here in Wakanda have been trying hard to neutralize them and they've made a lot of progress. But we've found the only sure way is a complete wipe. We've tried that a couple times. Only problem is, the serum starts kicking in and as soon as I see Steve's face or I spend too long among familiar things, all of it comes back. Including the trigger words. I can't..."

He looks pained. "I can't risk Steve. I can't risk all the people who've worked so hard to help me. So we have a theory. I don't understand all the jargon. But the trigger words are like brain damage and they need time to heal over. So the idea is that we do the wipe and put me, us, in some place where the serum isn't going to have a chance to jumpstart my memories. And, theoretically, that will give the trigger words time to heal over. Hopefully, it means I'll eventually be able to remember everything again without the words in my head. But, if not, this is worth it. You hear that, Steve? Yeah, I know you're going to break down and watch this. And, I want you to remember, this is all my choice. This is what I want."

James in the past wipes his eyes. "I love you, okay? I love you and this is worth it. I know you're not going to be happy with me just sitting in cryo. I know you're not going to focus on keeping yourself safe when you're worrying about finding the way to get this stuff out of my head. At least this way, we both have a chance. So you go out and don't worry about me. I'll be okay. And I'll come back to you." James reaches forward and clicks off the cam and the screen goes dark.

Steve is still asleep and James shuts the laptop, leans forward so his mouth rests on his steepled fingers.

James Buchanan Barnes had loved Steve Rogers. James Barnes had loved Nomad. Had his love for Nomad grown out of the barely remembered ember of Bucky's love for Steve? Or, was that just how it was? Something deeper, woven into the very fabric of his being, just loved this man - regardless of name or shared memories.

He thinks of Halloween night and bleeding in a dark alley and the warm blue of Nomad's - Steve's - eyes hovering close to his. He thinks of that first night on a cold rooftop and just knowing, somewhere that had nothing to do with memory and everything to do with reflex, instinct. He thinks of Bucky on the video, desperate and determined and saying I love you like it was the only thing that mattered.

"I love you," he tries, as James, testing out the words.

Steve said it back at the house, half on the edge of dying. And James hadn't said it back.

He tries again, murmurs it soft like they're in bed on New Year's Eve and the sun is coming up slow in the window, pink and grey - like they're not in a hospital room in a strange country in the middle of the night. "I love you."

Steve sleeps on.


	6. Chapter 6

James wakes up the morning after he watched the video - the morning after he saw Steve's face and arrived in Wakanda and realized who he was - and almost expects to find all the answers in his own head.

He opens his eyes in the sunlit room near Steve's and searches his memory for the missing pieces. They're not there. He kisses Steve's lips gently, just a bare press, and feels his heart crack all over again. He washes his face in the bathroom and stares at the pill container sitting on the counter. He doesn't have to take them anymore - the doctors had told him that the medications were only to keep his strength under wraps, another thing from his past life that was nothing more than a carefully constructed facade. He pushes the entire container into the trash and goes back to sit with Steve.

Things don't get better when he meets with Steve's doctors. Natasha is there too. She tells him that Sam is working with T'Challa and holds herself like she's bracing for a blow.

"Captain Rogers," the doctors say, like Steve hadn't been stripped of all rank and titles and honors after the Sokovia Accords, "was injected with a mutation of the Winter Soldier serum. It's attacking the original serum."

The only reason they recognized it, they say, is all the time they spent poring over James's serum. To synthesize a cure, they need a pure version of the serum.

"We can start using your blood and his blood - but it'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack and we don't know if we can do it in time."

"How much time does he have?" Natasha asks. She folds her arms across her chest.

The doctors exchange looks. "A week. Maybe two or three. We're carefully tracking his deterioration."

James goes to sit with Steve after that. He leans forward and slides his fingers up Steve's wrist, rests on his pulse point.

"Steve," he says and the name feels awkward on his tongue. "I won't let you down. I love you."

They haven't had enough time. James thinks of seeing Nomad's eyes for the first time in that warehouse, shockingly bright in the darkness. He thinks of the rooftops and that bar in Georgetown and the way lamplight softened Nomad's lips. He thinks of the feeling in his heart, throbbing on and on and growing with every moment. There would never be enough time.

He bends his head forward until it's resting on Steve's hand. In the face of a loss so great he can barely comprehend, for the first time, he desperately wants those memories. He's spent the months since the coma convincing himself that all the yesterdays didn't matter - it was only the present. Even in the last few hours when he knew, he'd thought about the past distantly - like it was a movie he'd like to see.

Now, when he thinks of facing a future without Steve (without Nomad because that was the man James had fallen in love with), he burns for those missing memories - aches for them like fresh water in the desert. He wants all the days in crystal clarity: the heartbreak and happiness and fear and pain and love.

"Bucky," Steve whispers, now, and James looks up. Sunlight is spilling across his face, across his collarbone and the white medical gown. There are lines around his mouth and his cheeks are sallow and James thinks he loves every bit of him.

"I'm here," he says and scoots forward, cupping Steve's cheek. "I'm right here."

Steve looks around, a bit blearily like his eyes can't get all the way open. "Wakanda?"

"Yeah - they brought you here. You're going to be okay. How you feeling?"

"They got me on the good stuff, I think." Steve gestures to the IV. "I just feel kind of floaty right now. Better than I did."

James smiles, smoothing his finger over his eyebrow. "That's good. You scared me there last night."

"I'm sorry." Steve's fingers come up, grip his sleeve. He coughs again, a deep rattling sound like something has broken deep inside. "I should've let you had your life. I should've left you alone. I just missed you. I missed you so much."

"I missed you too," James presses a kiss to his forehead. "If you hadn't come for me, I would've been looking for you my whole life."

"The doctors told you?" Steve asks, just a huff of air.

James tightens his grip. "They told me."

"Don't do anything stupid. Zemo is dangerous and he has nothing to lose." Steve coughs again. "Whatever happens, it'll be okay. I talked to T'Challa. You have a home here."

"What if the trigger words come back?" James asks quietly.

"Then they'll try something new." Steve leans forward, eyes going hard. "You do not get to give up. Not after all of this." He cocks his head. "You seem to be doing pretty well with all of this."

James blinks. "Haven't had time to get angry," he says truthfully. "Too busy worrying about your punk ass."

Steve looks pained. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to check up on you. I wanted to make sure you were okay, protect you. I never meant to... to... take advantage of you or...."

James leans close and kisses him, soft and sweet and trying to put months and years into the feeling. "Stop apologizing," he tells Steve's mouth, their noses still touching and their foreheads pressed together. "I would've never forgiven you if you hadn't come."

"I love you," Steve murmurs in the quiet space between them. "Never forget that."

"You'll tell me every day," James swears.

"When do you leave?" Steve's fingers thread with his.

"T'Challa's people are running some fancy algorithm and facial recognition trying to locate Zemo. Once we have a bead, it'll be wheels up."

"Stay with me?" Steve's expression is vulnerable and young. "Not do anything, just..."

James presses another kiss to his mouth, then both cheeks and then his forehead. "As long as I can," he promises. "You don't worry about a thing. Just focus on listening to the doctors and getting better."

Steve huffs. "Haven't been good at that ever, Buck." His forehead furrows and he shifts restlessly against the mattress like there's something inside that's paining him. He blinks. "Remember when I got that fever? That summer you got the job at the candy shop sweeping up."

James stays silent.

"It feels like that. You and Ma were just..." Steve trails off and his eyes narrow onto James, sharpening into more alertness than he's had for hours. "Bucky?" he asks and his voice is hoarse and strained. He struggles to sit up until James grabs his shoulders and settles him back down. "You don't remember," Steve breathes. He's trembling hard now. "You don't... What happened?"

"Easy, easy." The ache James feels is deep and insistent and he wants to take the pain and fear out of Steve's eyes but he can't lie when Steve's looking at him so desperately. "I'm sorry."

Steve falls back, going limp under his hands. "You don't remember," he breathes and the pain in the sentence hurts James deep inside.

"I know I love you." James leans close, makes the words firm and direct. He needs to make Steve believe this in his core, just like he does. "Steve. I can't even explain it. From the second I saw you, I knew you in my bones. I don't..." He swallows. "I don't remember being Bucky. But I know I still am Bucky."

Steve shuts his eyes tight and tears leak past his lashes, mouth in a thin line. He looks like he's in mourning.

"I love you," James repeats. "I feel... I feel like I've loved you my whole life, with every part of me, even if I don't remember it. That watch I gave you for Christmas? How would I've known that without something of Bucky inside of me." He hesitates. "I know that you... You love Bucky. And I don't want to assume that..."

Steve tightens on his hands and his eyes open, red rimmed but clear. "You're Bucky," he repeats. "You're James. Even when you looked at me and didn't know me, I saw all of Bucky in you and I loved every piece of it. I will love every bit of you that you can give me. I just don't want to," he breathes out. "I don't want you to force feelings because you feel like you should have them."

James leans back in his chair, searches deep inside for a long moment. He finds the short autobiography of his life, paragraphs about his job and his therapist and his small house and thinks of the new section he'd been writing before Nomad had become Steve. "I loved Nomad. I love you. I can't always believe at how fast it's come - but I know it's there."

He leans forward and kisses Steve softly, wary of the leads on his chest. "Okay? I love you. Me, James, loves you."

Steve reaches for him, tucks his face into James's shoulder like they can merge into one. The bed is narrow and a little too firm. But, when they press together, Steve tight against James's chest and their arms intertwined, James thinks they fit just right and that this is the most comfortable he's ever been. He strokes Steve's hair, as gentle as he can, murmurs soft words until he feels Steve slide back into sleep.

Natasha comes after Steve's been sleeping for awhile. She jerks her head and James follows her out the door.

"Before we put you in the field," she says as they walk a long hallway, "we need to be sure you're not going to be a liability."

He thinks she means hand to hand. Or...

James clears his throat. "I haven't held a gun since uh."

Her stride doesn't break but he can see the way her expression pauses. "Why not?" She's blunter than Steve.

He's blunt right back. "I don't like them. I won't kill anyone for you."

"Not even to save Steve?" There's no inflection when she says it and she doesn't look at him. Her red hair catches a stray flash of sunlight and, for a moment, she looks icy.

He thinks about it - mulls it over and chooses his next words very deliberately. "I won't kill anyone for you," he draws it out, makes it pointed. "I won't kill anyone because someone ordered me to ever again." He leaves the last part of the answer unspoken. He would choose his own battles - his own deaths.

She nods once, sharp, and he thinks she understands.

They enter a long room - a gym, he realizes. There are thick blue mats on the floor and a rock climbing wall at the far end. There are balance beams and ropes and lifts and treadmills.

Wanda is there. And T'Challa. And Sam Wilson. There's another man perched at the top of the rock wall that James doesn't recognize. The door bangs shut behind them and he gets the sensation of being trapped.

"What?" he starts but then, is interrupted.

Natasha is speaking Russian. The words are harsh and he thinks he might understand them. She speaks slowly, each word and then a pause like she's reciting something. She's staring at him and she's holding long, lit stun batons in each hand.

James backs up as she moves toward him. The words are just sounds to him but somehow they resonate in his head, echo against his bones. He shudders, like there's pointed nails screeching against the smooth inner curve of his skull. Time slows. Each word grates and he resists the urge to go to his knees. He can't stop his full body jerk when she finally goes silent. His legs finally give up and he goes to hands and knees, staring down at the blue mat.

She's right over him and he can hear the stun batons humming. "Soldat?" she asks.

"What the fuck," he says, "was that."

Natasha stares down at him.

The tension is heavy against his skin and he feels like he can't get enough air in his lungs. He gets up, first to his knees, and then Natasha offers him a hand, pulls him up smoothly the rest of the way.

"We had to be sure," she says.

He looks at the others and notices that all of them are still in defensive poses. "Sure of what?"

Her voice is quiet. "The trigger words. We had to be sure they were out."

Cold washes over him, stomach going tight and heart pounding. "Those were..." he shakes his head, trying to clear the dense hurt clustered right behind his eyes. Of course they were the trigger words. He remembers the same words in that dark warehouse months ago. "Someone else tried to trigger me. Months ago. Before I met Steve. I didn't know what was happening but I didn't even flinch. It wasn't that hard."

Wanda's mouth twists. "As you remember more, the words may become stronger. But, hopefully, they will never fully trigger you like they did before."

James looks back at Natasha. "So I passed?"

She doesn't smile. "You passed. Now let's see what you got."

After he has been beaten, soundly, Natasha is also the one who says, "you shouldn't come with us. You should stay with Steve."

"Am I that bad?" He knows the answer. He is. James Buchanan Barnes had been an efficient killer. He was a back alley vigilante. James doesn't make her lie to him. "I don't remember anything," he tells her.

"Steve would be happy if you stayed."

"Did you know me well?" he asks. He's sitting on a low bench in the shower room attached the gym and staring down at his hands. He knows he's failed when it counted.

"No. I knew who you were when you were with Hydra. And I knew how Steve saw you. I didn't know you." She pauses. "I didn't trust you. For a long time. But, near the end, I was beginning to think I could."

"Did I do the right thing? Letting them erase everything like that?"

"You didn't want Steve standing over your cryo tube. You wanted there to be a chance. You wanted to be useful. You made a choice." She shrugged. "You're back with him now. The trigger words are gone. It worked."

"Did Steve understand?"

"Steve wanted you safe and happy. I think he viewed this as you maybe getting your chance at a normal life. He wanted you to have the chances you never did." Her smile is wry. "He decorated your house himself. Spent hours figuring out what would make you comfortable, feel at home."

James remembers the paintings on the wall - the one in his bag and the others left behind. "But he couldn't stay away," he whispers, echoing Steve's words.

Natasha nods. "I don't think he will ever be able to stay away from you." She pauses. "You should stay with him," she says again.

And he knows that she is right.

 

* * *

 

When he sits down next to Steve in the clean medical room after the team has lifted off, he doesn't hesitate to wrap his fingers around Steve's. His arm is throbbing just a little at the elbow from where the doctors drew what felt like half of the blood in his body - but James doesn't care. He would bleed himself dry if it would help find a cure.

"Hey," he says.

Steve opens his eyes and they're glassy and bloodshot. He looks worse and James feels fear roll over in his stomach. "James," Steve murmurs. He licks his lips. "No luck with Zemo yet?"

"They spotted him in Cairo," James says softly. "The team left a couple hours ago."

Steve frowns. "You didn't..."

James smiles. "Couldn't let you get into trouble all by yourself here."

It shouldn't be this easy, part of him thinks - this easy to fall into a life he only remembers as instinct and impressions. He thinks of his small life in his small job with the pills and the walk to work. The first time Nomad's blue eyes had found his, the universe had expanded and filled and brightened. Something had slotted into place and deep inside.

This, he reflects, as he intertwines his fingers with Steve's, feels like the most natural thing in a world where nothing has felt natural for a long time.

"I'm not going to leave you again," he promises, leaning close. "I love you."

Steve's smile is like the dawning sun. It shines in his pale face like this was all he had ever wanted. His fingers grip on to James and his eyes don't slide away. "I've always loved you. Will always love you. And I won't leave you. This won't take me away from you."

James smiles into the space between them. "I'm gonna hold you to that."

The doctors flit in and out the rest of the day and James can't bring himself to leave. They look grimmer as the day wears on and James clings tighter to Steve's hand.

Steve is trying to be strong. James can see it in the tautness of his shoulders and the way his mouth firms. Something about it makes his chest ache with something that feels like fear and fondness and awe all wrapped up in one.

At some point, even the chair starts feeling too far away and James crawls onto the bed, slides his arms around Steve and just breathes in steadily like he can make Steve well by the sheer force of his will. He leans until he can feel Steve's heart beating against his chest and it feels like a familiar song.

The Black Widow calls as dark is starting to fall. She sounds rushed and maybe afraid. "We found where he had been holed up," she says, "but he's gone. We found what he used to poison Steve so the king and Sam are coming back with it. We think it will help." She swallows across the line. "How is he?"

Steve is panting a little, skin sallow and sweaty, only half aware. He's in a lot of pain and the treatments aren't working and the doctors are casting looks at each other that make James nervous. He swallows himself.

There's not much light in the room and he feels like there's a bigger yawning darkness just waiting to swallow both of them whole. In his quiet life before, nothing felt this large or devastating and he finds himself almost numb in the face of it.

"Sooner the better," he says.

The Black Widow breathes into the phone. "Take care of him," she says. "We'll be back as soon as we catch Zemo."

It's only when he hangs up that he realizes something is wrong.

All day long, the hall had been busy with people walking to and fro. They're in a fairly private wing - but this is still a large hospital. Now, it's silent. It makes the hair on the back of his neck prickle.

He crosses in two strides to the other side of the bed and punches the intercom to the main medical station.

"Yes, Mr. Barnes?" says a professional voice.

"Is everything alright down there?"

There's a slight hesitation. "There's been a security alarm on the outer perimeter. We are having everyone stay out of the hallways while we make sure that there was no breach. You should be perfectly safe in your room."

James glances at Steve on the bed. He doesn't seem to be listening, eyes closed and breath coming harshly. He's vulnerable.

"Mr. Barnes?" says the voice on the intercom.

"Yes, thank you." He clicks off and the surveys the room. There's a small bathroom and a fairly large closet with a thick door.

"Okay, Steve," he murmurs. "Let's get you off the bed."

Maybe he's overreacting. But something deep inside is screaming that he needs to hide Steve - needs to make sure he's safe at all costs. Better safe than sorry.

Steve can't seem to focus but he helps the best he can, getting his arm across James's shoulder. He buries a muffled grunt against his neck, arms quaking briefly with the strain. "What's..." he tries to ask but he has to stop to inhale deeply.

"I don't know." James kicks the closet door all the way open and settles Steve down, propping him against the back wall. He has the Bite in his jeans still and he presses it into Steve's hand, makes him curl his fingers around it. "We're just gonna stay out of sight for a bit, okay?"

Steve nods. "'kay, Buck," he murmurs and seems to drift off.

James stands up and that's when he hears the gun cock.

"Soldier," says a low voice that James doesn't recognize. "Oh, how long I have waited for this moment."

"I don't know what you've heard," he says and tries his best not to look down to where Steve is half hidden behind the closet door, not to draw attention to where Steve is helpless. "But I'm not the man you're looking for."

"I heard they tried to wipe you away. They hid you from me, from the world, to keep you from paying for your crimes. But I’ve seen the footage. I’ve read all of the files. A man like you, soldier, should not be allowed to live his life in peace. You are not a man who should escape punishment.” He smiles. "I'm here to be sure you suffer for the things you have done. Turn around, soldier."

James pivots, keeps his hands carefully in view, and looks for the first time at the man in the doorway. He looks like a Wakandan doctor, white lab coat and stethoscope and dark eyes - and then there's a flicker and a silvery grid shimmers and dissolves, the face of a doctor morphing into someone James recognizes as the man from the images during the briefing. "You're Zemo," he says, finally. "You're the one who poisoned Steve."

"Necessary to draw you out. I knew, no matter what had been done, that they could not keep you from your Captain's side if he was dying."

At those words, James can't stop his hands from clenching. "Why?" He grinds the word out, makes himself not step forward. "What do you want with me?"

In the dim light from the hall, Zemo's smile is a single glisten of teeth. "Revenge. Isn’t that lifeblood of the world? In prison, I’ve had time to contemplate the ways to make you and your captain hurt the most. I saw you in Germany. I saw you in that footage. A few words, soldier, and you would rip the man you loved most in the world apart with your own hands. You crush the life from his body while staring into his eyes and you would only come back to yourself after he was dead at your feet. You would be covered in his blood, and know that you will never be able to outrun the monster inside of you. Then, if you do not kill yourself, the courts of the world will.”

James feels his mouth go dry. "The words don't work. They fixed it."

Zemo gestures with the gun. "Why do you think I brought this?"

James focuses and realizes that the object in Zemo's hand is not a gun. The mouth of the device is sharpened down to a point like a garden hose nozzle. The back of it is thickened like a small cannon. James takes a step back.

"Hydra had many devices in that bunker," Zemo almost murmurs. "So many things that their scientists worked on and perfected free of moral confines. This, soldier, should remove any artificial blocks the Wakandan doctors or the Scarlet Witch put in there. And then..." Something inside the device clicks over. "Then all of their hard work will be undone."

Something hot and white slams into James's brain. It doesn't hurt. Just burns deep and clean. He feels over-sensitized and exposed and he falls to his knees, arms flung uselessly to stop his descent.

"Bucky!"

The closet door is open and Steve is staggering, barely on his feet except for the fact that Steve has never stayed down: not now and not in Washington DC with the helicarriers tumbling around them or in Brooklyn with the bullies and their fists.

"Longing," he hears a voice say in Russian and he thinks, wildly, that he shouldn't know Russian.

Steve slides in front of him, cups his face. He's sweaty and pale and shaking all over, eyes burning bright in his face. "You have to fight it," he says, but Bucky can't respond. Get away, he wants to say, get away from me and save yourself.

The air is heavy and he remembers asthma attacks and watching Steve struggle to breathe. He draws in a gasp through the sludge that is suddenly in his throat and then he hears the next word. There's something dark and squirmy deep in his brain, like worms climbing out of his fingernails or ropes binding him tight. He can see Zemo in the door, a blurry dark figure.

Steve is gone from in front of him now, throwing himself at Zemo - only to be batted away. He gets up again though, throws a wobbly punch even as the next word hits Bucky and he can't watch anymore, vision going sideways and blurry.

He closes his eyes and lets the wave rush over him, pulling him past decades of happiness and misery and suffering. There's a great roaring and he can feel the words down his soul, knows what they are trying to draw out of him. He takes one deep breath and suddenly there is calm.

The sudden silence almost seems louder than the noise, pressure in his ears building for the pop. He takes a deep breath.

"Soldat?" asks the man in the doorway.

"Bucky?" asks the man on the floor.

He lifts his head. Zemo is standing there with the weird device and an open expression of malice on his face. Steve is on the ground, struggling upright, face rock hard with determination.

"Bucky," he's saying. "You have to fight."

The Bite is on the floor, halfway between Zemo and the bed. He has one shot. Bucky lunges and scoops the little weapon off the ground. Steve shouts and Zemo lets out one panicked sound before the electricity arches into him.

It's not enough. Zemo staggers but doesn't fall. Bucky braces himself once and then charges at his knees, taking them both to the ground. He can feel his arm humming against him and it's easy to wrap his fist around Zemo's throat and raise him high above his head, even as Zemo bucks and scratches against him.

He can feel thin skin and delicate veins and slender muscle beneath his vibranium fingers and thinks about squeezing and squeezing until there is nothing left of this man, until he can feel the life slide away.

Then there's a pop and Zemo's hands are no longer clawing at his. His head slumps with a neat bullet hole between his eyes, staring at Bucky wildly.

Steve is leaning against the wall, breathing hard and shaking all over. The gun he'd pulled from the bedside table is sliding to the floor and he's reaching for Bucky with one hand. He's deathly pale and clammy and his hair is sticking greasily against his skull. But Bucky thinks he's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

He drops Zemo and crosses the room, reaching to catch Steve even as he begins slumping.

"Steve," he says, thumb brushing over Steve's jaw.

Steve's eyes crack open. "Bucky?" he asks with such a soul-deep longing that Bucky is voiceless in the face of it.

He nods, presses his face down to brush a kiss along his jaw. "It's me. I'm here," he manages, through a wet throat.

Steve makes a wet noise and clutches at him. "You're here. You're back."

Bucky slides so he's sitting with his back against the bed, cradling Steve to his chest. "We're home," he says. "Just hold on a bit more, okay?"

"Didn't want you to have to kill him," Steve says, eyes closing again. "You'll be okay."

"You'll be okay too," Bucky promises. He hears sirens coming from somewhere down the hall. A large red light is blipping steadily, reflecting off of the clean white tile. Help will be coming soon.

Steve is drifting, eyes sliding across the ceiling and then catching on Bucky's face like it's the sun. He doesn't say anything, breath panting past paling lips, but his gaze doesn't slip away either. His eyes are steady and his fingers weakly grip Bucky's back.

There's so much left to be said.

Bucky finds himself bowed in the face of years and years of absence and loss. There's a deep well of feelings bubbling in his chest and he's watching time drip through his fingers. There's years and years of memories, not crushing like he remembers from before, but filling his world with long missed color and depth. And Steve. Steve is threaded through like a bright promise of gold and peace. He thinks of the sparking, new love that had bubbled in James and feels it joining with this steady never-ending feeling he has grown old with. "I love you," Bucky murmurs to Steve, quieter than the alarms and the footsteps he can now hear running toward them. "Wherever... Whatever happens, I love you."

Steve's smile is small and quiet and his eyes shine like he's crying. "You're not gonna get rid of me," he says and then the doctors and nurses and guards are bursting into the room and tripping over Zemo's body and pulling at Steve.

He clings briefly but then Steve's eyes roll back and he begins to seize and Bucky lets go, scoots back against the wall. A nurse takes his arm, helps him up and out of the room and he watches Zemo be covered with a white sheet.

"Is there a phone?" he asks, eyes fixed on the shadowed doorway of Steve's room. "I need to call Sam."

 

* * *

 

T'Challa and Sam land in Wakanda just hours later. They're both exhausted and Sam's eyes are afraid but they have the compound they found in Cairo. The doctors snatch it up and race it back to the hospital. "We'll know more soon," they promise.

Sam levels him a chill look after T'Challa has left for the throne room. "I liked James," he says, "he was polite. You gonna be making jokes about my wings?" The words are joking but there's something deeply prickly underneath Sam's eyes.

Protectiveness.

Back in Europe with the UN and Zemo and the pressure of his own brain, Bucky hadn't recognized it. But now, in the clear light of Wakanda, with his own love thrumming against his ribs, Bucky sees it as plain as day.

Sam Wilson is the older brother and Bucky is taking Steve out past curfew. The absurdity of the situation would be funny, if Steve wasn't languishing rooms away. Even so, Bucky feels the blossoming of a kinship - an understanding.

So Bucky lets his mouth twist and lift. "I feel like the joke is already there," he says, no inflection.

Sam grumbles but his hand lingers on Bucky's arm in a way that feels like a welcome home.

Steve is deeply unconscious in his quiet hospital room when they come in. He hasn't woken up since they had sat on the floor together while Zemo's body cooled next to them. But Sam doesn't hesitate - he goes straight to the bedside and grabs Steve's shoulder like this is any other greeting.

"Hey, man," he says. "I hear you got into some more trouble with your boy while I wasn't keeping an eye on you."

Steve doesn't stir.

Sam slumps like everything is too heavy. He settles a hand on Steve's shoulder and bows his head close like they're sharing secrets. "C'mon," he murmurs. "Not when you're this close."

Bucky looks away; suddenly feeling like the intruder. He remembers those quiet days in his quiet house, in his quiet life, and thinks of Steve living out all of those same days, all over the globe with only Sam beside him. Sam. And not Bucky. He tamps down the feeling harshly. Instead, he goes to sit on Steve's other side, takes his hand in his flesh one and lets his fingers linger on the pulse point.

There's all these memories in his head now, all the context he had spent months looking for is now in every gesture and every thought. Each feeling has more depth than he had ever thought possible. He feels Steve's pulse and thinks of a drab apartment in Brooklyn and a snowy field during the war and a dirty riverbank. Steve's heartbeat is the rhythm to his greatest fears and deepest prayers and highest joys.

They wait together, Sam on one side and Bucky across, with Steve between them like a bridge. The room is cool and quiet, the blood cleaned from the floor long ago. Bucky stares at the place where he had held Zemo's life in his hands, thinks of Steve pulling the trigger so he wouldn't have to take a life.

I could've done it, he thinks to Steve. He looks down at his hands, thinks of all the blood on them that he now remembers. He's not an innocent. What is one more death? Except, when he hadn't remembered who he was, he'd been desperate to avoid any death. He bends his head. "Thank you," he murmurs. He glances to see if Sam heard and finds that the other man has fallen asleep, head tipped back and hand still resting on the bed. The sight drags a smile from Bucky.

When Steve is well (because there isn't another option), Bucky knows he'll do whatever it takes to stay with Steve. If that means joining Steve and Sam and the rest of them in hunting down Hydra and other villains, then Bucky will do it. But, if he's honest with himself, he's dreaming of a home and a place to do good with his hands, not more violence. He can't go back to Washington D.C., but Bucky thinks that there are many places in the world that could use some help.

He reaches forward, smoothes a hand down the side of Steve's face. "You need to wake up," he whispers. "We have plans to make. Places to see." It's probably his imagination, but he thinks Steve leans into his touch, just a little.

The night drags in painfully slow increments, measured by the doctors scurrying in and out and Steve's steady heart monitor. As the night wears on; they look more hopeful, smiling a little at each new result.

"He's getting better," they tell Sam and Bucky and the surge of relief is immeasurable.

Natasha arrives near daybreak, Wanda just behind her. They're both exhausted and dirty and they go to Steve first, brushing hands over his still ones. Natasha presses a kiss to his cheek, the healthy glow already returning to it.

"There was a Hydra base," she tells them as she sits near Steve's feet. "In Greece. Zemo had convinced them to provide the manpower. The payment was going to be you, Barnes. After you had killed Steve."

Bucky feels a cold in his bones at the idea of Hydra taking him again. He looks down. "They're all gone?" he confirms.

"All gone." Natasha bites her lip. "It's only a matter of time though. Before more and more people know you survived. You can't go back."

Bucky closes his eyes and sees the green trees surrounding his little house and the bridges and the rooftops and his walk to the embassy. He thinks of Nomad on rooftops and shakes his head. "There's nothing to go back to. Everything is here."

She watches him steadily. "His Majesty has extended sanctuary to you. You will be safe here as long as you stay."

Bucky nods. "I go where he goes."

Sam cracks a smile. "Don't we all."

 

* * *

 

Steve wakes up the next day. The serum had been healing him in leaps and bounds and he'd been gaining color and his breaths had been easing for hours. Outside, the sun is bright and shining off of the tops of buildings and Bucky can see the breeze ruffling the tops of trees.

The first time he had arrived here, missing an arm and with a head heavy with Hydra's words, he remembers being overwhelmed with the brightness and the beauty. He'd felt small and dirty and broken by the lovely cleanliness of this place. They had stumbled off that plane from Siberia and Steve had glowed in the light. Bucky had looked at him and had seen everything that Steve could offer the world. In the face of his own brokenness, the choice to do whatever was necessary to get better had been an easy one.

He remembers now the peace he had felt when taking this chance, knowing that this was the only way he could free himself, and Steve, from the years Hydra had put on him. Now, as he stares at the blue sky and feels his own peace and hears Steve breathing softly, he knows it was all worth it.

When he hears a noise from the bed, he looks back and Steve's eyelids are fluttering, mouth twitching just a little. He leans close, brushes a kiss over his fingers. "Time to wake up," he says, and thinks of Brooklyn again. His own memory merges with the painting Steve had made for him, the glow of a sunrise between buildings and Steve, so near to his heart.

Steve opens his eyes, blinks like there's a haze in them, and then focuses. His long lashes dip once more, blue shining bright to match the sunshine coming through the window. "Hi," he says, hoarse. His fingers twist and grip Bucky's. "Bucky," he says, equal parts question and wish and prayer; like he can't quite believe or remember what had happened in the last moments he was conscious.

Bucky cups his face and kisses him firmly, ignoring the scent of hospital and the grease of unwashed hair. "You," he says, still leaned so close that he can see the tiny green flecks in Steve's eyes, "can't be reckless anymore. We have a whole lot of life to live."

Steve kisses back and Bucky can taste his relief. "I've been waiting for you," he says and the words are raspy and wet. "For so long." Bucky can hear months, years, of pain and longing poured into the words.

"You and me both, pal." Bucky laces their fingers together. He feels whole - mended at long last. The pages of his life are full and deep and endless - and there are so many words left to be written.

Outside, there's a jungle and, beyond that, a whole world that's just for them.


	7. Epilogue

The sun is just beginning to set, casting a dusty, gray glow over rough stone streets of Athens. In this section of the city, the streets smell of sewage and there are more potholes than sections of unbroken road. Most of the windows are dark, glass broken in bent frames.

In one of the squat, dirty buildings, though, a warm glow shines cheerfully through carefully repaired windows. The air around smells of soup and chicken and warm bread.

Bucky Barnes strides up to the door and raps once before pushing inside. He has plastic bags in both hands and he’s wearing a baseball hat pulled low over his forehead.

A long table dominates the first, large room and people are crowded around it. Steaming bowls of soup and thick pieces of bread are in front of each person. The golden light from the overhead chandelier suffuses their tired, worn faces with a softness, washing away dirt and years and sharp angles of hunger.

This is the first meal they’ll serve tonight. Before midnight, they’ll have cleared and served six groups of twenty people. Even more people will have come through the kitchen, picking up thick chicken sandwiches and paper cups of tea to take back with them to the streets.

Bucky nods to the men and women eating and then strides into the kitchen.

The large space is warm with tall, metal pots of soup and loaves of bread, laid out and waiting to be sliced. Steve is standing near the stove, stirring a long wooden spoon in one of the pots. His blonde hair is sticking to the nape of his neck, slightly sweaty.

He turns when Bucky comes in, smiling wide and happy. “Hey – she’s in the other room with Sam.” There’s the last shadow of a bruise around his cheekbone, extending back toward his ear. It’s the only remaining sign of the last op he and Sam had run, somewhere in Sudan.

They’d come back three days ago: Sam limping a little from a bruised and swollen knee and Steve nursing a concussion and a bullet through the shoulder. Bucky had resigned himself, months ago (but really, almost a century ago), to the idea that Steve would never be able to ignore injustice and suffering in the world.

In the small room off the kitchen, a young woman sits, cradling a baby to her chest. Her face is frightened and exhausted and the baby in her arms seems impossibly small.

Bucky sets the bag on the table and sits next to her. “Sofia,” he greets softly. “I brought formula. Diapers. Clothes,” he says in careful Greek. He pulls out the tub of powdered formula and a baby bottle. He mixes the formula with water quickly in the baby bottle, shaking it with a few flicks of his wrist. “Here,” he offers it to the young mother.

He watches as she urges the baby to latch, feels contentedness unfurl in his chest as the baby suckles strongly. “καλά,” he murmurs. “Good.”

It’s moments like this that he feels the most pride over this little place he’s built, the moments where he sees the direct impact of his work.

After Zemo, when he had recovered his memories, Bucky had spent the next year traveling with Steve, Sam, and the others on their missions, assisting in natural disasters and civil wars and knocking out Hydra nests where they popped up. But, when they had happened through Greece, chasing a Hydra agent, Bucky had known what he needed to do.

Most of the world still thought that James Barnes the Assassin was dead and every day he kept traveling with Steve, even wearing a mask, was a chance that his cover could be broken. Blowing that cover meant that the nation of Wakanda would come under scrutiny, potentially revealing the connection between T’Challa and Steve Rogers.

So, with the help of his savings from his time as a security guard, Bucky had purchased this apartment building in a rundown section of Athens and had spent months cleaning, painting, and repairing. Steve and Sam had helped, with Natasha and Wanda and Clint coming by when they could.

A year ago, he had opened this: a home for those who had no home. He provided little apartments for families and dormitories for those who were alone. He kept the kitchen open and made sure everyone had a bed or a couch or a mattress. Sometimes, it was hard. In a city with so much need, it could feel impossible to make a difference.

But, moments like this, when a young mother smiled and a baby ate and a group of people gathered around a table, Bucky knows it was all worth it.

“Hey,” Steve leans in the doorway, cleaning his hands on a rag. His blue t-shirt is pulled tight against his shoulders and chest, jeans skimming down his hips. “You need to eat dinner.”

Bucky stands up, crosses the room in one stride and leans into Steve’s space. The other man smells of spice and flour, hands warm and firm against Bucky’s hips. “We can eat in bed,” he murmurs back. “I’ve barely seen you all day.”

“I like that,” Steve kisses him, presses their lips together and then leans against Bucky’s forehead like they’re sharing secrets. “You know I miss you whenever I’m gone.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he says back and reaches forward to nip at Steve’s bottom lip.

Hours later, they lie together in the large bed in Bucky’s small apartment on the top floor of the building. They curl together, Steve’s hands bracketed around the back Bucky’s neck, thumbs rubbing circles at the base of his skull. The heat between them, trapped under the sheets, warms something deep inside Bucky.

Against all the odds, Bucky thinks, he has made it here, to this place. He has a life full of people and purpose and love.

They kiss once more and then Steve pushes down the coverlet. “Time to go,” he says.

Bucky stretches and sits up. Steve is already at the closet, tossing something black and silky toward him. He shakes out the fabric and slides the dark t-shirt over his head, standing up to shimmy into his black jeans. Steve is tying his boots as Bucky slides his tac jacket on and fastens his mask over his head.

Across the room, Nomad turns around and grins at him, the dark blue of his mask making his eyes bright. Behind him, that portrait of Brooklyn that James had taken from that small house is carefully framed and hung.

Like always when he meets eyes with Nomad, James feels his heart quicken, the memories coming from deep inside. “Fancy meeting you here,” he says, sliding the Bite into his belt.

Steve takes his hand. “Ready?” he asks.

Bucky opens the window. “Always,” he says back. With a smooth motion, he balances on the window ledge and uses the frame to vault onto the roof. Steve follows a moment later.

The moon and stars are bright, glimmering around dark clouds. Pale buildings stretch around them, extending toward the darker shadows of hills. Around them, James can hear the murmur of the city, cars and people.

Steve steps back and leaps easily to the next roof. He looks over his shoulder, something daring in his gaze.

In the moonlight, Bucky follows, feels the night air blow across his face. They leap and run forward, moving silently across the rooftops and back alleys.

Bucky smiles and the mask tug against his cheeks. There’s something bright and unbroken in his chest, something that has come from Brooklyn and somehow survived to this very moment. He leaps again, feels Steve’s warm presence just next to him. This, he thinks, is what happiness feels like.

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this little story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I'd love to hear any thoughts!!


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